Obamacare’s insurance subsidies
Last week the federal government issued information concerning the sign-up process for Obamacare that will begin October 1 of this year. Here are the details.
[T]he health bureaucrats have quietly posted a 21-page draft of the application for Obamacare. It’s accompanied by a 61-page explanatory document.
Forgetting for the moment the complexity of the application process, I thought it might be of interest to deal with only one aspect…the income portion of the application process that will determine whether one receives a subsidy to cover all, or a portion of the cost of the premiums, or is ineligible for any subsidy.
According to the government, when your application is submitted, the income you report will be instantaneously verified by the IRS. There is only one small problem. As of October, 2013, the only income data the IRS has is what was reported on your 2012 income tax return.
So, let’s say, for example, you earned $100,000 in 2012, and this amount is reported on your 2012 return. In this case, you would not qualify for a subsidy. But, let’s say, you lost your job in 2013, and only expect to earn $35,000 in 2013. In that case, you would qualify for a subsidy. On the application you submit in October of this year, you dutifully report your 2013 income as $35,000, but, the IRS will bounce it back because its records show you make $100,000.
Of course, the converse is also true.
Then, what do you do about the pesky situation where one qualifies for a subsidy, but owes back taxes? Is the subsidy paid, or will it be used to off-set what you owe?
Heck, why am I wasting my time on this? The federal government is in charge. What could possibly go wrong?
6 Comments
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Gee, I thought the gub’mint was just going to send everyone who filed with the IRS a Bill for ObamaCare coverage — what’s it? a tax, fee, permit, license, whatever!
That way, ObamaCare would instantly make tax cheats out of millions of Americans — probably disproportionately Republicans –? who would think they have been overcharged or otherwise “billed inappropriately” and have to appeal the bill. There is an appeals process, isn’t there? Wouldn’t having to navigate a 21-page application form discriminate against all of those poor people who don’t have the identification necessary to vote (Democrats) or can’t tolerate (read) complicated applications or are too ornery (Skeptical Conservatives) to want ObamaCare?
A 60+ page manual to instruct how to fill out a 21-page application? Really! It sounds all too onerous to me. (I’m from the gub’mint and I’m here to help you!) Is there a niche industry of CPA-like people (cronies) to help people apply for ObamaCare?
I jest . . . or maybe not.
(If you don’t understand the form, please fill out the form stating that you don’t understand the form.) Bureaucrats!
If millions of us just go to the hospital and don’t pay, we never will have to becaust it will tie up the courts for a hundred years with the government suiong us for the money and or fines we owe. When judgement comes they can dig us up and get the money.
God needed few words for the ten Commandments; the founding fathers needed less than 6000 words for the Constitution including the Bill of Rights and these donkeys need 82 pages for an Obamacare application and explanation?? Is this progress as defined by government?
Obamacare: Effed up in every one of the hundred major languages across the world.? Maybe Martian too…that’s the planet where the flag is planted according to Cynthia McKinney….
I think she was appointed as the U.S. Martian ambassador.??
?
She’ll probably get more protection than Ambassador Chris Stevens did too!
If it take 61 pages to explain a 21 page document, how many pages will it take to explain the intricacies of ?bamacare (especially at a level that our “representatives” can understand it, preferable before voting for it)?