What Happens Now If You Didn’t Sign Up For Obamacare?
Curious to learn how others are feeling about the highly debated Obamacare, I hit social media in the hope of finding others who had signed up for it and might be willing to share their experience. But it didn’t take long before someone wanted to chime in on why they would rather take the penalty than EVER sign up for Obamacare.
Keeping in mind that people’s personal political stances and personal feelings about the President would alter individual’s opinions, I feared they might be in for bad consequences if they missed the deadline. Is that really how Obamacare works, or was that all just hype to get you signed up for the plan?
That feeling that you could be in real trouble without it was a factor for many who chose to take the plunge and get insurance. Michael Loertscher, a resident of West Jordan, who signed up for the plan on healthcare.gov with the help of trained navigator, said he did it because he thought he had to. If he knew more about having a choice, he said he might have made a different decision. Finding out that the penalty to not take the coverage was 1/3 the annual cost he was now going to have to pay, Michael was even more irritated that he didn’t realize he still controlled the decision to go without Obamacare.
I’ll have to admit, even I went to the site entirely because I feared my daughter would be forced to pay high penalties for not having insurance. Knowing she is in the middle of medical treatments and recently lost her insurance, I wanted to see if Obamacare was really even affordable or worth it. Now my daughter has insurance and for us, that is a blessing. Even if the plan is restrictive, it’s a lot better when you have ongoing medical costs.
But that doesn’t mean everyone feels they should be forced to take on an extra expense when it comes to our health care choices and having insurance. Michael further states: “I have great doctors and medical facilities I use that work with me if I ever need to see a doctor. It gives me better payment options instead of having a high premium I am forced to pay every month even if I don’t need a doctor.” Being relatively healthy, he felt that that not getting insurance was just a better option for him.
There are many different reasons people feel they don’t need insurance. For one, people don’t think they will get sick and they believe the cost of premiums will be more than the cost to see a doctor. Two, they would rather play roulette with long term or more serious illnesses and take their chances that they won’t incur high medical costs. But the biggest reason we found was simply that people feel they cannot afford it, and the addition of having to pay a medical premium every month has caused them stress with their other financial obligations.
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There are exceptions that can make you exempt from the requirement to enroll, ranging from cost being more than 8% of your income, to incarceration, to recognized religious sects that do not believe in health insurance coverage. For a complete list of those exceptions you can go to IRS.Gov.
But if you oppose the idea or just don’t like Obamacare because of a personal political beliefs, exactly what is going to happen to you if you voluntarily choose not to get healthcare coverage? First, you will not face any criminal charges, and the government will not come knocking on your door to force you into taking Obamacare. You certainly do have a choice as to whether you do or don’t sign up. The consequence comes in the form of a penalty assessed to your taxes.
For 2015, that penalty is either 2% of your annual income, or $325 per person in your household that goes without insurance. This will increase in 2016 to 2.5% or $695 per person. However, the penalty is also pro-rated, so if you get insurance halfway through the year, or one of the short term plans still being offered, you only pay the 1/12th penalty per month you went without.
You do have a choice when it comes to Obamacare. You have the choice to pay the penalty or the premiums, whichever is better for you. In my daughter’s case, as with most individuals who really need medical insurance, we would rather pay the premiums, but some feel that taking the penalty on their taxes is the better choice.
Being informed and educated on the subject always helps, but with the myriad of information that has been coming out over the last couple years it’s hard not to get confused. For more information on Obamacare, and the short term plans still available, we encourage you to go straight to the Obamacarefacts.com website.
