5. Many older individuals will be exempt from the mandate
If you need to buy insurance on your own, you’re exempt from the individual mandate if the cost of your coverage is more than 8 percent of your household income. (The percentage is adjusted, over time, using a somewhat complex formula.) This means many older people—who pay higher premiums than younger people—will be exempt from the mandate altogether.
6. If you don’t file a tax return, you’re exempt
You’re also exempt if your income is below the poverty line, or if you don’t file an IRS tax return. Indeed, if you add up all of these exemptions, MIT economist and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber estimates that 40 percent of people who are uninsured are exempt from the individual mandate.
7. ‘Members of recognized religious sects’ and American Indians are also exempt
If you’re a member of a “federally-recognized Indian tribe,” congratulations! You’re also exempt from the individual mandate. This is in part because the Indian Health Service offers government-run health care to members of such tribes. Members of a “recognized religious sect or division,” as specified in Section 1402(g)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code, are also exempt. So, you might be asking yourself: which “religious sects” are exempt?
The Internal Revenue Code exempts an individual from certain taxes if he is “a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof and is an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division by reason of which he is conscientiously opposed to acceptance of the benefits of any private or public insurance which makes payments in the event of death, disability, old-age, or retirement or makes payments toward the cost of, or provides services for, medical care,” including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Your “sect” has to have been in continuous existence since December 31, 1950, and the Commissioner of Social Security must agree that your sect “has the established tenets or teachings” consistent with opposition to medical benefits. While there are some on the Internet who believe that this religious exemption applies to Islam, it doesn’t appear that way to me, as Muslims are not exempt from Social Security. Instead, the exemption is meant for groups like the Amish.
So if you really hate the individual mandate, you don’t have to burn your Obamacare card—just join the Amish or an Indian tribe!
Considering that Elizabeth Warren says she’s Cherokee— that should be easy to accomplish. Want to see her at next year’s Cherokee powwow, chanting in native tongue or writing in Sequoyah’s alphabet. Thanks, Jack. good info
“exempts an individual from certain taxes if he is “a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof”
How can you have the law mention a “recognized religious sect” that you carefully adhere to the rules of, unless Congress is violating the first amendment language stating, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”?
Recognized = Law respecting
(I know,,,)
I assume that there are lawsuits re: 14th Amend. Equal Protection Under The Law.