These days, many consumers can’t afford to buy major medical coverage. Others don’t want to.
Both can apply for exemptions from the new “individual shared responsibility payment” requirements.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services officials say Obamacare’s individual mandate exemption requires many people with incomes over a certain level to have “minimum essential coverage”. Otherwise, they must pay a penalty for each month they weren’t covered.
The the Tax Policy Center says most of those affected this year will pay between a minimum of $95 per adult and $47.50 per child for the full year. The maximum penalty will be $3,600 per affected adult and $1,900 per affected child.
In 2016, the annual minimum will rise to $695 per adult and $347.50 per child. The maximum will rise to $4,045 per adult and to $2,135 per child.
Officials also said a more flexible kind of penalty exemption exists: A “hardship exemption” for people who face many different types of hardship events, including: having filed for bankruptcy in the last six months, having recently suffered domestic violence, the death of a close family member, having received a shut-off notice from a utility company, having an inability to pay medical expenses in the last 24 months, or experiencing increased expenses as the result of a need to care for an ill, disabled or aging family member.
Exchange consumers should mail exemption applications to an office in London, KY.
