The U.S. House is expected to approve legislation that will exempt hundreds of thousands of Americans from ObamaCare’s individual mandate tax
September 27, 2016
Americans Punished By ObamaCare’s Failure May Receive Lifeline
Today, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve legislation that will exempt hundreds of thousands of Americans from ObamaCare’s individual mandate, after they lost insurance following the failure of an ObamaCare co-op in their state.
Sixteen of the 23 ObamaCare co-ops have failed, which has subjected 800,000 individuals and counting to the penalty tax if it remains in place. The numbers of Americans impacted by the collapse of the co-ops will continue to rise as six of the remaining seven co-ops are on life support, adding to the myriad of problems posed to individuals that have recently lost coverage:
Having to switch plans in the middle of the year is a problem because it often means that enrollees need to start over on paying their deductibles, in effect increasing the amount they pay out of pocket for care.
While preliminary data showed that 7.5 million taxpayers were hit by the individual mandate, a more recent IRS report found that just actually just under 8.1 million Americans were hit by ObamaCare’s insurance requirement. The IRS collected nearly $1.7 billion from those taxpayers subjected to the tax. All told, the mandate will cost taxpayers $43.3 billion to the from 2016 through 2025 according to a nonpartisan analysis from the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation.
The Republican-led Congress will take the first of many steps towards helping Americans that have been burned by the President’s signature failure and exempt them from this penalty. The President should swiftly approve legislation that crosses his desk that corrects part of ObamaCare’s failure and will ward off higher taxes for individuals that lost their plans because of this flawed legislation.