44 days isn’t much time. It’s about a month and a half. Yet in the bizarre world of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), it’s a big deal. Over the coming weeks I’m going to be looking at various provisions in light of the current law and the current difficulties–perhaps impossiblities–of individuals to actually sign up and obtain a policy. Consumer Reports is suggesting that perhaps a solution to signing up is to wait a while–at least a month; hopefully by then the software glitches will be gone.
Anyway, back to the point of this post, 44 days. Nancy Pelosi famously said, “But we have to pass the bill [ObamaCare] so that you can find out what is in it.” Well, there are some interesting deadlines in ObamaCare:
December 15th: Date you need to be enrolled by for coverage to take effect on January 1, 2014 [1];
February 15, 2014: Date you must have coverage by in order to be exempt from the Individual Mandate Tax; and
March 31, 2014: Final date to enroll for calendar year 2014.
The Obama Administration was unaware that someone who enrolls on February 16, 2014 will be subject to the individual mandate penalty tax until it was pointed out to them. The penalty for 2014 is $95 or 1% of Adjusted Gross Income, whichever is greater. I suspect for much of my client base the 1% of AGI will be greater, perhaps far greater than $95. Consider an amateur gambler who has $100,000 of gambling wins and $100,000 of gambling losses and who makes $100,000 of salary. He’s looking at a $2,000 penalty. Still, given the cost of health insurance under ObamaCare that might be a more financially prudent choice.
But do be aware that the true deadline is February 15th, not March 31st. It’s yet another quirk in the law.
[1] It is unclear if dates that fall on weekends–December 15th falls on a Sunday–cause the deadline to be extended a day. As best as I can tell, the answer to that is no…but I did not read the 3,000 page legislation.
Tags: HealthCareLegislation