You'll have to get coverage by Valentine's Day or thereabouts to
avoid penalties for being uninsured, the Obama administration confirmed
Wednesday.
That's about six weeks earlier than a Mar. 31 deadline often cited previously.
The explanation: health insurance coverage typically starts on the
first day of a given month, and it takes up to 15 days to process
applications.
You still have to be covered by Mar. 31 to avoid the new penalties
for remaining uninsured. But to successfully accomplish that you have to
send in your application by the middle of February. Coverage would then
start on Mar. 1.
The Jackson Hewitt tax preparation company first pointed out the wrinkle with the health care law's least popular requirement.
An administration official confirmed it. The official spoke on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak
publicly.
It's the latest tweak involving complex requirements of President
Barack Obama's health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act.
Previous adjustments have ranged from the momentous to the mundane. The
biggest one was a one-year delay of a requirement that larger employers
offer coverage, announced this summer. More recently, the administration
has postponed some Spanish-language capabilities of its enrollment
website, as well as full functionality on the site small businesses use
to sign up.
Brian Haile, senior vice president for health policy at Jackson
Hewitt, said government agencies initially had different interpretations
of the enrollment deadline. The Health and Human Services department,
which is taking the lead in implementing the law, kept referring to a
Mar. 31 deadline. But the Internal Revenue Service, which handles most
of the financial aspects, suggested that the deadline had to be in
February.
"There were inconsistencies," said Haile, adding it took several
inquiries by Jackson Hewitt over the last few weeks to clear up the
uncertainty.
The health care law was designed to cover the uninsured through a mix
of government-subsidized private insurance and a major expansion of the
Medicaid safety net program.
The rollout of online insurance markets this month has been snarled
by technical glitches that frustrated many consumers. Meanwhile, House
Republicans are still pressing their demand for a delay of "Obamacare"
provisions, if not its total repeal, as a condition for lifting the
partial government shutdown now in its second week.
Starting next year, the law requires virtually all Americans to have
insurance or face a tax penalty, triggered after a coverage gap of three
months. The penalty starts as low as $95 for 2014, but escalates in
subsequent years. There are exemptions for financial hardship and other
defined circumstances.
The purpose of the penalty is to nudge as many people as possible
into the insurance pool. That would help keep premiums in check, since
the law also forbids insurers from turning away people with health
problems.
Haile said an earlier enrollment deadline around Valentine's Day may
turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the administration, because it
creates a natural opportunity to market to young, healthy people, whose
premiums are needed to offset medical costs of older generations.
"When thinking about how to attract young people, a Valentine's Day message may be very salient," he said.
The administration says the deadline is actually Feb. 15, the day after Valentine's Day.
That's close enough that the government might be able to make the pitch work.
cheerfully led Spanish-language chants of “Si se puede” — or “Yes we
can” — at a rally Tuesday for amnesty and immigration, but turnout for
the event at the National Mall was far below the organizers’ predictions
of 100,000 attendees.
