The tax filing season has uncovered lingering wrinkles in the 2010 health-care law that have caused headaches for consumers who incorrectly estimated their income, didn’t use a government exchange to buy an insurance plan or changed coverage during the year.
Marta Chapman saw her anticipated $850 federal refund wiped out because she received too much in advance tax credits in 2014 to pay her insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act. That prompted her to drop her plan for this year.
“I canceled because I was very upset. To me it was kind of a trick,” said the 48-year-old personal-care aide in Aztec, N.M. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have got the insurance.”
Federal officials said they have been working hard to help people get used to the law’s system of financial help to pay health premiums, and will continue to try to make it easier for them. They said the Treasury Department had estimated the vast majority of people who got tax credits would still have some tax refund, on net.
“This is the first year that health insurance and taxes intersect,” said Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “Their tax credit may end up being bigger or smaller than expected, depending on what the person’s income was, but in every case, it is a tax credit from the federal government to lower the cost of their health care. We’re committed to listening and learning along the way so that we can improve.”
The law’s architects wanted the system to be fair, precise and well regulated. They tailored premium subsidies to the cost of insurance for people based on their age, local area and their household income for the year they have the insurance plan.
Doctors in the United States appear as bitterly divided over the Affordable Care Act as the general public.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also called Obamacare, has been a lightning rod since it was signed into law in 2010.
Five years after its enactment, the healthcare reform legislation still divides the American public. In a Gallup poll taken in early April, 50 percent of people surveyed said they disapprove of the act while 44 percent said they approve.
So, perhaps it’s no surprise that America’s 1 million doctors appear to be as split on Obamacare as the general public.
The Physicians Foundation released a survey last fall in which 20,000 doctors responded by email to an array of questions.
Of the respondents, 46 percent gave Obamacare a D or F grade, while 25 percent gave it an A or B grade.
In addition, two-thirds of those responding said they did not accept health insurance plans offered through the Affordable Care Act’s online insurance exchanges.
Those who oppose Obamacare say the survey is an accurate reflection of the country’s medical profession.
Those who support the law are quick to point out the survey was not a scientific poll. They say people who respond to email queries tend to be more critical than the general population.
House Committee on the Education and the Workforce
Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions
Hearing on
“Five Years of Broken Promises:
How the President’s Health Care Law is Affecting America’s Workplaces”
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, Members of the Committee,
My name is Tevi Troy, and I am the President of the American Health Policy Institute, adjunct fellow at Hudson Institute, and a former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as well as a former senior White House Domestic Policy Aide. The American Health Policy Institute is a 501(c)3 think tank dedicated to studying the issue of employer sponsored health insurance and highlighting the challenges employers face in offering care to their employees and their dependents. In addition to publishing a variety of studies on employer sponsored health insurance, the Institute also examines employer responses to these challenges and shares best practices from the most successful of these responses. These roles give the Institute a unique perspective on developments in employer sponsored health insurance, and enable it to make recommendations to both policymakers and business leaders regarding
Repealing the ACA’s individual mandate would result in 7 million fewer insured Americans in 2025 but would reduce federal spending on financial assistance by $191 billion, American Action Forum President Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who backs axing the mandate, told the House Ways and Means health subcommittee Tuesday.
Thumbs Down, way down, to everyone responsible for the fiasco known as Nevada Health Link, the state exchange for purchasing health insurance online.
As the deadline to file tax returns arrives tomorrow, we suspect plenty of taxpayers have discovered that Nevada Health Link and Xerox, hired to run the online system but since fired, created an accounting nightmare and cost some exchange customers a chunk of change. What’s worse, those responsible for this nightmare don’t appear to care one bit about the mess they created.
In accordance with the Affordable Care Act, those who purchased insurance through the exchange in 2014 have to report on their tax returns what they paid for premiums and how much they received in tax credits or subsidies for that coverage. The figures are reported in a federal tax form known as a 1095-A. The form is prepared and distributed by the exchange.
The special health insurance enrollment period set up for people surprised by their tax penalties hasn’t appeared to increase either awareness or enrollment by much, new research shows.
People who live in the 34 states that use HealthCare.gov and didn’t know about the requirement to have health insurance can sign up through April 30 for 2015 coverage.
But nearly half of people planning to file taxes said they had heard nothing or very little about the requirement to report whether they have insurance on their tax return, according to new research funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation..
“Very few people are reacting to the news by insuring,” said Kathy Hempstead, who directs insurance coverage issues at RWJF.
“So far it doesn’t seem we’re seeing this mass teachable moment.”
A new report shows that as the United States’ tax system grows more complicated because of Obamacare regulations, the economy is taking more of a hit.
According to data from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF), complying with the federal income tax cost the economy about $234 billion in productivity last year.
The group came to that figure by adding the out-of-pocket cost of tax preparation assistance ($31.7 billion) and the estimated cost of $202.1 billion due to lost labor hours Americans spent dealing with their 2013 tax returns that were filed in 2014.
Special: IRS Loophole That Could Protect You From Economic Instability
The economic hit was lower than the previous year by almost $10 billion, and the NTUF concludes that “was an anomaly.”
The increase to this year’s figure, according to the NTUF, stems from the Affordable Care Act and the mountain of paperwork it has created at the IRS.
“Looking deeper at NTUF’s research, there is one big reason to think this could be the beginning of a trend in the wrong direction: 3,322 pages of legal guidance for Obamacare (or the ACA) added to IRS.gov (1,077 pages of regulations, 1,377 pages of Treasury decisions, 669 notices, 100 revenue procedures, and 12 revenue rulings),” the report reads.
“Essentially, Obamacare is coming home to roost.”
As millions of Americans scramble to file their tax returns, many are shocked by the full cost of ObamaCare’s individual mandate.
“Those who failed to obtain minimum essential health insurance coverage last year will have had to send the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) a check for $1,130, on average,” Doug Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, testified today before a congressional hearing.
An estimated 6.3 million people will be required to pay a penalty this year because they didn’t buy qualifying health insurance in 2014, Holtz-Eakin testified. Another 30 million people didn’t buy the mandated coverage either but won’t have to pay the penalty because of the myriad exemptions the Obama administration is allowing, with or without legal justification.
Holtz-Eakin, now president of the American Action Forum, based his calculations on the number of people who will pay the penalty and the average value of the penalty, using demographic information from the American Community Survey and enrollment statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
This year’s new analysis of tax complexity from National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) found some startling lead figures: a $234 billion cost to the economy due to 6.1 billion lost hours of productivity and $32 billion spent out-of-pocket to comply with America’s insanely complicated tax system.
As always, there is much more to the story.
Since 2010, tax complexity costs have remained sky-high, at well over $200 billion each year. From fiscal year 2005 to 2013, the Treasury’s paperwork burden rose from 6.4 billion hours to 7 billion hours never making up less than 74 percent of the burden imposed by all government agencies combined.
While last year’s (covering 2013) totals actually trended downward compared to the previous year (2012), there was little reason to believe that was the beginning of a trend toward continued relief.