I have a question, then.
You speak about the whole exchange thing being delayed...”the exchanges”. This story is headlined about a federal exchange for small business (I’m presuming over 50 employees but still a small business) being delayed, then goes on to say that it will be delayed for other states beyond the 33 where feds are in charge of exchanges.
Here’s a category I never see discussed. This would be for people who work for a small business with so few employees there is no mandate on the business to provide health insurance. There are plenty of those people. They didn’t before, and they wouldn’t now, get health insurance via an employer-provided plan. The business is just too small for that.
However, as I understand it, the IRS is supposed to demand that you have health insurance or else you will either fall under a fine if you don’t, or under a subsidy if you don’t and decide to comply with the individual mandate, but are deemed too low-income to afford it.
In the latter case you would purchase insurance from an exchange or qualify under an expanded Medicaid program. That is assuming there was an exchange or there was expanded Medicaid where you lives.
Does this story mean anything for the person in THAT situation? What about the individual mandate on people whose employers never did provide an insurance plan and still don’t? Will the IRS still try to force those individuals to buy an approved plan or subsidize them to do do? Will an individual still face rules and punishments under the IRS enforcement while employers get a delay, or never have to do anything at all because they are too small?
And will this exchange delay, coupled with lack of Medicaid expansion in certain states, keep the IRS off the backs of individual taxpayers such as the category I described??
Those are very good questions.
Please understand that I’m NOT an nobamacare expert. I’ve been out of the industry since 1999. Most of my knowledge, what little there is of it :), comes from reading news articles, hanging our here on FR and from a few buds who are still in the industry.
If your employer’s company is small to the point nobamcare does not apply, the employees still have to buy insurance through the state exchanges. Or in the case of of a state that has it’s stuff together and told the nobamacare thugs to take a hike (like my South Carolina) and doesn’t have an exchange, directly from the Feds. I think.
I’d assume if the exchanges are late to market, the purchase of individual policies would be delayed as well. I think.
Please take this with a grain of salt. Like I said, I’m no nobamacare expert, thankfully.