{"id":2029,"date":"2014-03-18T13:37:29","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T20:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/?p=2029"},"modified":"2014-03-18T13:37:29","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T20:37:29","slug":"obamacare-deadline-really-means-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/insurance\/obamacare-deadline-really-means-money\/","title":{"rendered":"What Obamacare Deadline Really Means for Your Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re here to complain, debate, inflame, or otherwise argue about whether or not Obamacare is a good or bad thing, let me stop you right there. This is a personal fiance website, not a political forum. Go debate the merits of policy somewhere else. This article is about the finances of Obamacare and the upcoming March 31 deadline. If you have a comment about that, or something I missed, let’s hear it. If you want to say how good or bad this law is, don’t bother, I won’t approve it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Obamacare Deadline March 31<\/h2>\n

Alright, with that out of the way, let’s jump right in. The law popularly known as Obamacare is actually called the Affordable Care Act. This is strange, because Congress usually goes out of its way to come up with an acronym for every big law it passes. However, this law states that you must be covered by health insurance by March 31.<\/p>\n

So, now what?<\/p>\n

\"Obamacare<\/a>First off, if you have health insurance that you get through your or your spouse’s company, stop reading and go have a latte. Nothing in this law pertains to you or your current situation.<\/p>\n

Second, if you already have health insurance that you are paying a monthly premium for, you are also done. By now, anything that doesn’t qualify, including all the policies that Obama said you could keep, then couldn’t keep, then could keep again, have been sorted out. If you are paying for health insurance, you can also go get a latte.<\/p>\n

Third, if you get Medicare, that counts too. Go get your latte with your senior discount.<\/p>\n

Fourth, if you get Medicaid, that counts too.<\/p>\n

Deadline If You Don’t Have Health Insurance<\/h2>\n

If you don’t have any kind of insurance at all, it’s time to put up or pay up. Let’s start with the deadline, it’s March 31, 2014. So basically, do it now. Last minute only adds stress.<\/p>\n

Unless you make pretty good money from your own small business, chances are you’ll get at least some sort of subsidy for buying your health insurance. (People who make good money at regular jobs usually also get a health insurance benefit.) Those subsidies are calculated by the various health care exchanges that were setup in each state. A quick search should let you find yours. Don’t just search on Google though, because there are plenty of trick websites. Find the name via a local newspaper website or official government website. (The health care exchange in Colorado is connectforhealthco.com, by the way.)<\/p>\n

Like everything else in the world, there are scumbags out there. Do not enter a credit card number or any banking information. Pay your bill directly to the insurance company until you know for sure who you are dealing with.<\/p>\n

Penalty If You Don’t Buy Obamacare Insurance by March 31<\/h3>\n

There are two penalties for not buying your new health insurance on time.<\/p>\n

First, you cannot enroll again after March 31st. If your not-so-brilliant plan is to wait until you need health insurance and then buy it, think again. Just like the enrollment window that comes with standard employer-based health insurance, the new Obamacare insurances have a window too, and that window ends on March 31. After that, you have to wait for the 2015 enrollment window to open in November, 2014. Remember that even if you signup in November, your coverage doesn’t start until January 1, 2015. That means you’ll be uncovered for nine months.<\/p>\n

The money penalty for not having healthcare insurance is either $95 per adult, and $47.50 per child, that is uninsured up to $285, or 1% of your income above $10,150. In other words:<\/p>\n

\u00a0Penalty = (Your Adjusted Gross Income – $10,150) * .01<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you earn 133% above the poverty level or less, you are exempt from the penalty. But, if you earn less than 133% above poverty level, you either qualify for Medicaid, or your subsidies will make your insurance premiums free, or very close to it. So, just go sign up and have health insurance, instead.<\/p>\n

The penalty is month-based, so if you don’t have coverage for two months, your penalty for the year would be 1\/6 of your penalty as calculated above (or 2\/12 for those of you who don’t remember how to reduce fractions \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

When Do You Pay Obamacare Penalties<\/h3>\n

The penalties for not having insurance will be paid as part of your 2014 income taxes that you file by April 15, 2015. Those forms have not been created yet, so there isn’t a space for it yet, but there will probably be a line on the Form 1040 for the penalty, along with a worksheet of some kind.<\/p>\n

Don’t fall for any sort of trick where you have to mail someone your fine or enter a credit card number or bank account information. I haven’t seen those yet, but you can be they are coming.<\/p>\n

The penalties increase in subsequent years, but will worry about that in 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re here to complain, debate, inflame, or otherwise argue about whether or not Obamacare is a good or bad thing, let me stop you right there. This is a personal fiance website, not a political forum. Go debate the merits of policy somewhere else. This article is about the finances of Obamacare and the upcoming March 31 deadline. If you have a comment about that, or something I missed, let’s hear it. If you want to say how good or bad this law is, don’t bother, I won’t approve it. Obamacare Deadline March 31 Alright, with that out of the way, let’s jump right in. The law popularly known as Obamacare is actually called the Affordable Care Act. This is strange, because Congress usually goes out of its way to come up with an acronym for every big law it passes. However, this law states that you must be covered by health insurance by March 31. So, now what? First off, if you have health insurance that you get through your or your spouse’s company, stop reading and go have a latte. Nothing in this law pertains to you or your current situation. Second, if you already have health … <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[598,660,612,667],"class_list":["post-2029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurance","tag-health-insurance","tag-insurance","tag-obamacare","tag-taxes","no-featured-image-padding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}