You Might Pay A Lot More Than $95 For Skipping Health Insurance

NPR ^ | 03/12/2014 | Julie Rovner

[SeekAndFind]

2014 is the first year most Americans will have to either have health insurance or face a tax penalty.

But most people who are aware of the penalty think it's pretty small, at least for this first year. And that could turn into an expensive mistake.

"I'd say the vast majority of people I've dealt with really believe that the penalty is only $95, if they know about it at all," says Brian Haile, senior vice president for health policy at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. "And when people find out, they're stunned. It's much, much higher than they would expect."

In fact, "the penalty is the maximum of either $95 or 1 percent of taxable income in 2014," according to Linda Blumberg, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center. "For people with higher incomes, it can be much more sizable than $95."

Blumberg says that even for people with more moderate incomes, it's important to remember that the flat-fee penalty will be assessed for every family member who lacks health coverage.

"So if it's a two-adult household and both are uninsured, it's twice $95 — $190," he says. "Then if there are any children in the family that are uninsured, the penalty for each of them is half of the $95."

The flat-fee penalty maxes out at $285 next year. To help people figure out what they might owe, the Tax Policy Center, jointly run by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, just posted an online calculator. And Jackson Hewitt has its own "How much is my tax penalty?" worksheet.

Haile says it's important to remember that even if most of the family has insurance, having just one uninsured member can trigger the penalty.

[nascarnation]

Obamacare is a legal amoeba.
It morphs weekly (daily?)

You can see why the IRS needed to hire 15,000 accountants and attorneys to administer it.

Could you imagine the MSM sh!tstorm if a Republican rewrote laws on the fly to appease electoral groups?

[hal ogen]

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Good luck to the governmental idiots to somehow straighten-up this cluster**** (as if they wanted to do so,,,this is intentional).

[Intolerant in NJ]

Ah yes, Julie Rovner, ‘rat “analyst” if I’m not mistaken - sort of scare tactics we could expect from such - but according to what came out today, all one has to do is submit a paper claiming that signing up for Obamacare is a hardship to be excused from the program sans fine - excuse me - tax - as Bret Bair and Charles Krauthammer both pointed out on Fox tonight, in this case Obamacare becomes its own hardship......