As part of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded project to help navigators and assisters in five states, faculty at Georgetown’s CHIR and the Center for Children and Families have been getting a lot of tax-related questions lately. Tricia Brooks, Sandy Ahn, Sabrina Corlette and JoAnn Volk share answers to some of the most frequently asked questions.
The current tax filing season, for the 2014 tax year, is the first in which consumers will need to indicate whether or not they had coverage in 2014, or face a potential tax penalty for failure to have coverage throughout the year. JoAnn Volk takes a look at the affordability exemption and what consumers need to know.
In recent rulemaking, the Obama administration attempts to close a potential loophole in the Affordable Care Act – the sale of fixed indemnity insurance policies marketed to look like health insurance but leaving consumers without the same protections. Sabrina Corlette takes a look at the proposal and what it might mean for consumers.
Now that 2014 is here, the ACA’s individual mandate is in effect. In the last few months the Administration has issued some more guidance about how the mandate works, and our colleague Joe Touschner at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families provides this update.
On the eve of the December 23 deadline to sign up for health insurance coverage, the Administration announced that people whose previous health plans had been cancelled will now be allowed to enroll in alternative, bare-bones coverage. Consumers and those charged with helping them enroll – navigators, brokers, application assisters and others – are likely to have questions about the change. Sabrina Corlette provides answers here.
The Obama Administration has asked health care sharing ministries to step forward to determine whether they qualify under the Affordable Care Act for an exemption from the individual mandate. What are health care sharing ministries and how are they regulated? Sabrina Corlette provides some background.
The Urban Institute has published a helpful analysis of proposals to delay the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate provisions. The authors detail why such proposals would have disastrous consequences for the millions of consumers expected to benefit from the law. Sabrina Corlette took a look and shares why delaying the individual mandate is tantamount to repealing the ACA itself.
Next year’s premiums for individual market plans will be way down in New York thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Christine Monahan discusses how a competitive exchange and the individual mandate will provide relief to cash-strapped New Yorkers.
While many will be focused on the drama of the November election, Katie Keith discusses the need for federal and state officials, health plans, providers, and consumer advocates to stay focused on meeting critical implementation goals on very tight timeframes so that the promise of the Affordable Care Act's reforms can be realized.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the individual blog post authors and do not represent the views of Georgetown University, the Center on Health Insurance Reforms, any organization that the author is affiliated with, or the opinions of any other author who publishes on this blog.
