While some businesses with more than 50 employees were relievedto have another year to comply with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the new deadlinecould have an unintended effect.

Credit Union Exchange Blueprint, a Birmingham, Ala.-basedprivate exchange for credit unions and members that provides onlineaccess to insurance carriers, said it believes the decision toextend the compliance deadline for providing health insurancecoverage to employees will cause more companies to drop their groupcoverage and send staffers to the individual market.

“Large employers will also hurt many of their employees byoffering coverage, but they've been 'stuck between a rock and ahard place' since they faced severe penalties of $2,000 perfull-time worker if they failed to provide coverage,” said EPL, the credit union core processing specialist in Birmingham,Ala., providing the technology behind CUEB.