Obamacare Delays Income Level Rule Until 2015

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(Newswire.net — July 8, 2013) Portland, OR — Verification plans of taxpayer subsidies are now sceduled to go into effect in 2015 for those that earn roughly $45,000 to purchase health insurance, or $15,000 to qualify for Medicaid in the District of Columbia and 23 other states.

The disclosure was announced on Friday without much notice with the Department of Health and Human Services publishing the notification in the Federal Register.

This recent announcement comes just days after the Obama administration delayed until 2015 the employer mandate that required businesses with more than 50 full-time workers to pay stiff fines for failing to providing insurance.

As the time for implementation draws near, more and more problems begin to rear their heads.

“As crunch time is coming, they’re just muddling through and figuring out short cuts,” said Ian Spatz, a senior adviser at Manatt Health Solutions, told The Post. “It might not be elegant, but this is how they’re trying to make the law work.”

Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., and a consumer advocate, said it’s not unprecedented for the government to use the honor system, and compared it to reporting cash tips to the Internal Revenue Service.

“An awful lot of the economy is a cash economy,” Jost said. “If we had to verify every statement that was made to the IRS, our economy would collapse.”

Friday’s announcement — concluding the Fourth of July holiday – continues a theme that the Obama administration chooses to deliver information likely to be criticized by Republicans or the media during recess periods.

Described by some as a “train wreck”, including one of its original authors (Sen. Baucus), it has even been called a “fiasco for the ages” by the Wall Street Journal. 

UnitedHealth, America’s largest health insurer, recently announced that it will be closing shop in California and leaving all customers there in a lurch.

It now appears that it may more beneficial, at least for insurance companies, to cease business than even make the attempt at servicing customers under the proposed rules in Affordable Health Care Act.

Author: Google+ Jan Johansen