Sign Up for Health Care Coverage or Pay Penalty

The Affordable Care Act(ACA) – also known as Obamacare – is a law enacted to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance. It supports discounts (known as tax credits) on government-sponsored health insurance plans, and expanded the Medicaid assistance program to include more people. The law requires most Americans to have insurance by Feb 15 or pay a fine at tax time. The Obama administration extended the deadline to April 30, which is the end of the tax season, so to allow people who discover they would owe a fine, to still sign up for coverage. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that many uninsured are choosing the penalty over the opportunity to enroll in a healthcare insurance plan. Choosing to go without health insurance puts your assets at risk. If you consider yourself healthy, you can select a plan with low premiums. You will have higher out-of-pocket costs at the time of care than with more expensive plans, but you will still have protection against an acute episode of costly care, which if unprotected, can drive you to bankruptcy.

If you do not have health care insurance through your employer, and you are not covered by Medicare or Medicaid, then you can buy a healthcare plan on www.healthcare.gov if your state participates in the federal program or else from your state’s health care website. For access to an up-to-date information on each state’s health insurance marketplace profile, check out http://kff.org/state-health-marketplace-profiles/.