The Obama administration today announced a year-long delay of online enrollment for small businesses looking to purchase health coverage through online federal-run exchanges (SHOPs), another setback for HealthCare.gov, reports Politico.com.

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Small businesses, which have been able to apply for exchange coverage by paper application since Oct. 1, will have alternative sign-up methods, HHS announced Wednesday. Those looking to enroll through small business exchanges, known as SHOP, can sign up through an agent or broker or directly through an insurer.

“We’ve concluded that we can best serve small employers by continuing this offline process while we concentrate on both creating a smoothly functioning online experience in the SHOP Marketplace, and adding key new features, including an employee choice option and premium aggregation services, by November 2014,” according to an HHS notice issued a day before the long Thanksgiving weekend. Those features give workers more choice of health plans, rather than having the business owner choose it.

Read more: “Online SHOP enrollment delayed by one year” (Politico)