{"id":3720,"date":"2013-12-20T05:33:08","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T13:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mnjinsurance.com\/?p=3720"},"modified":"2015-09-23T20:17:09","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T03:17:09","slug":"health-care-reform-the-individual-mandate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mnjinsurance.com\/health-care-reform-the-individual-mandate\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Care Reform: The Individual Mandate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Under the Affordable Care Act, the individual mandate requires all citizens and legal residents of the United States to have &#8220;minimum essential coverage&#8221; insurance b y January 1, 2014.\u00a0 People who do not have qualified health insurance or government health plan, like Medicare or Medicaid, must obtain health insurance or pay a penalty tax called the &#8220;shared responsibility payment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>People have &#8220;minimum essential coverage&#8221; if they have:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Government-sponsored plan (i.e. Medicare, Medi-Cal)<\/li>\n<li>Employer-sponsored plan<\/li>\n<li>Individual plan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>U.S.-issued expatriate plans provide minimum essential coverage for expatriate employees and their dependents regardless of where they are located in the world.<\/p>\n<p>People can choose to buy health insurance &#8220;on-exchange&#8221; or &#8220;off-exchange&#8221; plans that open in 2014.\u00a0 Some people can also receive federal premium assistance on an exchange, depending on household income.\u00a0 NOTE:\u00a0 There is a specific Open Enrollment period for which individuals can apply for coverage on\/off the exchange, and individuals can no longer enroll at any time throughout the year (as done\u00a0in prior years to Health Care Reform).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hcreformandmore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ACA-graphic-3.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-91 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/hcreformandmore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ACA-graphic-3-300x152.png\" alt=\"ACA-graphic-3\" width=\"430\" height=\"218\" \/><\/a>If a person does not have minimum essential coverage, the IRS will collect a tax penalty from him\/her.\u00a0 The monthly tax penalty is described as 1\/12th of the greater of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>For 2014:<\/strong>\u00a0 $95 per uninsured adult in the household (capped at $285 per household) or\u00a01% of the household income over the filing threshold.<\/li>\n<li><strong>For 2015: <\/strong> $325 per uninsured adult in the household (capped at $975 per household) or\u00a02% of the household income over the filing threshold.<\/li>\n<li><strong>For 2016:<\/strong>\u00a0 $695 per uninsured adult in the household (capped at $2,085 per household) or\u00a02.5% of the household income over the filing threshold.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The penalty will be half of the amount for people under age 18.\u00a0 Beginning in 2017, the penalties will be increased by the cost-of-living adjustment.<\/p>\n<p>There are a few exceptions to the penalty, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Religious reasons,<\/li>\n<li>Not present in the United States,<\/li>\n<li>In prison,<\/li>\n<li>Not able to pay for coverage that is more than 8% of the household income,<\/li>\n<li>An income that is below 100% of the Federal Poverty Level,<\/li>\n<li>Having a hardship waiver, or<\/li>\n<li>Not covered for less than three months during the year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>See the following sites for more details:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/04\/requirement_flowchart_3.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">The Requirement to Buy Coverage Under the ACA<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/Affordable-Care-Act\/Individuals-and-Families\/Questions-and-Answers-on-the-Individual-Shared-Responsibility-Provision\" target=\"_blank\">IRS Individual Shared Responsibility Provision<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>This content is provided for informational purposes only.\u00a0 While we have attempted to provide current, accurate and clearly expressed information, this information is provided &#8220;as is&#8221; and MNJ Insurance Solutions\u00a0makes no representations or warranties regarding its accuracy\u00a0\u00a0and completeness.\u00a0 The information provided should not be construed as legal or tax advice or as a recommendation of any kind.\u00a0 External users should seek professional advice form their own attorneys and tax and benefit plan advisers with respect to their individual circumstances and needs.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Under the Affordable Care Act, the individual mandate requires all citizens and legal residents of the United States to have &#8220;minimum essential coverage&#8221; insurance b y January 1, 2014.\u00a0 People who do not have qualified health insurance or government health plan, like Medicare or Medicaid, must obtain health insurance or pay a penalty tax called&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnjinsurance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3720"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnjinsurance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnjinsurance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnjinsurance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnjinsurance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mnjinsurance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnjinsurance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnjinsurance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnjinsurance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnjinsurance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}