Affordable Care Act: Coverage May Be Unaffordable For Low-Wage Workers

[kenny blankenship]

33. The IRS is supposed to be prevented from aggressively prosecuting non-compliance

but after the first year, the fine, which we're not supposed to call a fine or punishment, but rather a tax (wink), starts to go up.

It goes up from a trivial $95 for an individual plus additional half that amount for each of your kids to about $700 for an individual in 2016, and half that ($347) for each kid. Your household penaltax (I almost said penalty- hah!) can be as high as $2,085 or 2.5 percent of your household income, whichever is greater. And you will still be without health care access. After 2016, though, these levels of financial reprisal from the IRS are supposed to level off and stay the same forever. Call me crazy but I don't think they will.

My expectation is that when Obamacare fails to approach its enrollment targets, the penaltax will be the first area to receive its "we'll fix it later!" review.

The cry around here will be "We're the good health insurance buying citizens who want Obamacare to succeed. All our premiums are going up and up! Why is it fair for the Penal-Tax to stay the same for the scofflaws, while we pay more and more? Waaah!

And the pain -which is the only thing this government likes to share out liberally- will go up.