About 500 000 children would be left without insurance and the
poorest Americans could be fined under President Obama’s new health care
law because of a loophole that the administration and Congress failed
to fix.
Lawmakers passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010 without taking care
of a loophole that would make it impossible for low-income families to
purchase health care for their themselves or their children. Under the
health care law, anyone who fails to acquire insurance will be forced to
pay a heavy tax penalty – including those who can’t afford their
employer’s insurance plans.
To downplay the severity of the
loophole, the administration is calling it a “glitch” and claiming that
it was initially unable to address it because of the way Congress wrote
the law. Now, two years after the law was voted on, the affordability
loophole is posing a significant problem in wake of many of the
provisions' 2014 implementation.
The Obama administration
initially planned to offer financial assistance to families to buy
private health insurance if they cannot afford their employers’ options –
but Congress did not include text for the financial assistance program
in the Affordable Care Act.
Under the law, anyone who remains
uninsured will be forced to pay heavy fines – including those who can’t
afford their employer’s insurance plans. And the IRS on Wednesday
refused to exempt such individuals from the fines.
Employer-sponsored
health care plans are on the rise, but some families that are unable to
afford the coverage offered by their job could be left uninsured when
“Obamacare” goes into effect. In the legislation, affordable coverage is
defined as costing no more than 9.5 percent of family income. But
low-income workers might be unable to pay for the care offered by their
employer – especially if it exceeds the affordability margin. Health
insurance coverage also costs more if a worker has a family to cover,
making it difficult for low-income families to also insure their
children.
An average workplace plan costs about $5,600 per
individual worker and about $15,700 for a family, according to the
Kaiser Family Foundation. Paying three times as much might not be an
option for those with insufficient incomes, thereby prompting them to
leave their children uninsured.
Bruce Lesley, president of First
Focus, told AP that close to 500,000 children could be left without
insurance because of the loophole. Many families will not be able to
afford coverage unless their employers help them pay for the premiums –
which not all employers do.
In order to solve the problem,
Congress would need to amend the health care law, since a significant
measure is missing from the text and the IRS failed to exempt Americans
who are poor and uninsured from financial penalties.
“They are bound by the law and cannot extend further than what the law provides,” Neil Trautwein, vice president of the National Retail Federation, told AP.
But
Republicans are already starkly opposed to “Obamacare” and would be
unlikely to add new measures it, thereby leaving the Obama
administration – and the people his law would cover – stuck in the mud.
The
loophole would significantly burden low-income families, making the
Affordable Care Act not so affordable for everyone. But unlike a
“glitch”, which is usually a short-lived fault, this gap might simply
thrust hundreds of thousands of Americans further into poverty.
https://rt.com/usa/news/americans-care-law-loophole-179/