December 21, 2017Andy Schneider
The tax bill (H.R. 1, The “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”) that Congress passed this week is about more than cutting taxes for corporations and high-income individuals, although it is definitely about that. It’s also about cutting health coverage for low-income children and families.
The bill’s repeal of the tax penalty for not having health insurance coverage has received a lot of attention, and rightly so. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), most individuals are required to have health insurance coverage (the “individual mandate”); failure to do so results in a tax penalty (the greater of 2.5% of income or $695 per adult/$347.50 per child). The tax bill permanently repeals the penalty for months beginning January 1, 2019, but not the mandate itself.
As our colleague Sabrina Corlette at Georgetown’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms has noted, the gutting of the individual mandate, “will be, in effect, the final death blow for the individual market.” She predic…
The tax bill (H.R. 1, The “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”) that Congress passed this week is about more than cutting taxes for corporations and high-income individuals, although it is definitely about that. It’s also about cutting health coverage for low-income children and families.
The bill’s repeal of the tax penalty for not having health insurance coverage has received a lot of attention, and rightly so. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), most individuals are required to have health insurance coverage (the “individual mandate”); failure to do so results in a tax penalty (the greater of 2.5% of income or $695 per adult/$347.50 per child). The tax bill permanently repeals the penalty for months beginning January 1, 2019, but not the mandate itself.
As our colleague Sabrina Corlette at Georgetown’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms has noted, the gutting of the individual mandate, “will be, in effect, the final death blow for the individual market.” She predic…