“As millions of Americans scramble to file their tax returns, many are shocked by the full cost of ObamaCare’s individual mandate.
“Those who failed to obtain minimum essential health insurance coverage last year will have had to send the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) a check for $1,130, on average,” Doug Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, testified today before a congressional hearing.
An estimated 6.3 million people will be required to pay a penalty this year because they didn’t buy qualifying health insurance in 2014, Holtz-Eakin testified. Another 30 million people didn’t buy the mandated coverage either but won’t have to pay the penalty because of the myriad exemptions the Obama administration is allowing, with or without legal justification.
Holtz-Eakin, now president of the American Action Forum, based his calculations on the number of people who will pay the penalty and the average value of the penalty, using demographic information from the American Community Survey and enrollment statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“In reality, the individual mandate has been less of a mandate and more of a suggestion,” he told the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Kevin Brady, R-TX.” - Average Fine For Noncompliance With ObamaCare Is $1130, Expert Testifies, Forbes, 04/14/2015
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/2015/04/14/average-fine-for-noncompliance-with-obamacare-is-1130-expert-testifies/?mc_cid=653e60c898&mc_eid=2b1a7a9dca
“Being uninsured in America will cost you more in 2015.
It's the first year all taxpayers have to report to the Internal Revenue Service whether they had health insurance for the previous year, as required under President Barack Obama's law. Those who were uninsured face fines, unless they qualify for one of about 30 exemptions, most of which involve financial hardships.”
“In 2015, all taxpayers have to report to the IRS on their health insurance status the previous year. Most will check a box. It's also when the IRS starts collecting fines from some uninsured people, and deciding if others qualify for exemptions.
What many people don't realize is that the penalties go up significantly in 2015. Only 3 percent of uninsured people know what the fine for 2015 will be, according to a recent poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Figuring out your potential exposure if you're uninsured isn't simple.
For 2014, the fine is the greater of $95 per person or 1 percent of household income above the threshold for filing taxes. It will jump in 2015 to the greater of 2 percent of income or $325. By 2016, the average fine will be about $1,100, based on government figures.” - Being uninsured in America will cost you more, Yahoo Finance, 12/29/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/being-uninsured-america-cost-more-163436765.html
Updated 01/09/2015:
Chart of the Week: How Much Will Obamacare Fines Continue to Rise? - dailysignal.com, 01/08/2015
http://dailysignal.com/2015/01/08/chart-week-much-will-obamacare-fines-continue-rise/
‘The conservative American Action Forum (AAF) released a study on Tuesday saying that the individual mandate penalty may never be substantial enough an incentive to get young adults to buy into the ObamaCare exchanges.
The study finds that after accounting for cost-sharing and subsidies in 2014, it would still be cheaper for 86 percent of young adults to forgo coverage and to pay the individual mandate instead. That percentage decreases to 71 in 2015, and 62 in 2016, as the individual mandate penalty goes up.
“Even after the mandate penalty is fully implemented, a majority of young adult households will find that it is financially advantageous for them to forgo health insurance, pay the mandate penalty, and personally cover their own health care expenses,” the study says.
While this would leave young adults vulnerable to extremely high medical bills if they endured a catastrophic illness or accident, the study highlights the challenge the Obama administration has in its push to enroll the “young invincible.”’ - Study: Young adults lack incentive to buy ObamaCare coverage, thehill.com, 01/22/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/196104-study-young-adults-lack-incentive-to-buy#ixzz2r8yBUjBc
"One day away from the launch of the Obamacare marketplaces, the question most on the minds people visiting the Healthcare.gov website is not about coverage, but rather about avoiding the penalty, or tax, for not having health insurance."
"As the website explains, the fee (tax) in 2014 is 1 percent of annual income or $95 per person, whichever is higher. The fee increases each year. By 2016 it increases to 2.5 percent of income or $695 per person, whichever is higher." - The Weekly Standard, 09/30/2013
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/most-popular-question-healthcaregov-how-get-exemption-lack-coverage-penalty-fee_757361.html
One of the talking points in the political promotion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) also known as Obamacare was the attempt to provide health insurance to the vast majority of the estimated 45 million uninsured Americans. Arguments about the ability of an overburdened health-care system to absorb upwards of 45 million more potential patients is a particularly interesting argument. The specter of rationing when price is eliminated as the rationing agent [price fixing scheme of Obamacare and the subsequent outcomes of price fixing schemes] and other arguments regarding the scheme’s viability and implementation are very valid arguments regarding the absorption of upward of 45 million new participants.
However, will in fact upward of 45 million people become insured or will the number be much, much smaller?
Putting aside arguments that the current number of insured(s) may actually fall and concentrating on the potential 45 million additional insured(s), will in fact the 45 million become a much, much smaller number than anticipated due to the “penalty” of the individual mandate being depicted as a “tax” by SCOTUS?
Thomas Lambert, law professor from the University of Missouri in an assay entitled How the Supreme Court Doomed the ACA to Failure explains at length why the Obamacare fine/penalty/tax is much more rational to pay than acquiring coverage. That is, Lambert puts forth the formula of rationally paying the tax and acquiring coverage only when a sickness, illness or accident manifests itself and/or occurs.
More importantly Lambert explains the reasoning behind Justice Roberts conclusion that the penalty was a tax and how the tax has to be relatively small in size (not punitive) and how the tax must remain the same amount adjusted for inflation. That is, the “tax” can not be increased per the Roberts decision except via an inflation adjustment which means the tax remains relative in size to the inflation adjusted Obamacare insurance premium. Therefore, the tax remains relative and hence it will always be rational to follow the Lambert formula of paying the tax and acquiring coverage only as needed. The only exception to the formula is if health-care prices fall, but Obamacare does precious little to address the underlying health-care price.
Lambert also points out that the framers/promoters of ACA likely figured they, in the future, could increase the penalty/tax via congress. Problem is the same framers/promoters never figured on the individual mandate and associated penalty being framed constitutional via a “tax” argument and hence made no process arrangements for raising the penalty aka “tax”. Hence no mechanism exists in ACA to raise the tax as that was something the framers/promoters would have gotten around to later but now can not make any changes at all due to Roberts decision and the requirement that the tax can not change except adjustments for inflation. Ops!
With the formula in hand and with the rational response being to pay the fine and acquire coverage when necessary, anti-selection sets in, in a big way, with only older and infirmed individuals buying coverage which means health insurance premiums skyrocket. Given the Lambert formula via the tax depiction by Roberts, the mantra of upwards of 45 million new insured(s) fizzles.
Thomas Lambert’s entire essay can be found in the link below:
www.cato.org/…s/files/regulation/2013/1/v35n4-5.pdf
