Posted on 02/20/2015 7:43:55 AM PST by maggief
The administration sent incorrect tax information to 800,000 people who have enrolled in ObamaCare, the administration announced Friday.
Because of the mistake, tax credits were calculated either too high or too low, and officials are asking people to delay filing their taxes until the problem is corrected. Affected people are now being contacted by phone and email. The administration said that 50,000 of the people affected had already filed their taxes, and the government would now work with them to correct the problem.
The error involves the "benchmark" health plan that is used as part of the formula for calculating how much is owed in taxes.
"The incorrect benchmark plan was put on some small number of forms," said Andy Slavitt, deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Officials did not offer a specific explanation for why that mistake occurred.
Republicans had already been hitting ObamaCare for complicating tax season. The House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) last month pointed to the array of forms that people must fill out.
“Many families are in for a rude awakening,” spokesman Brendan Buck said then. “All the more reason to repeal the law and replace it with patient-centered reforms.”
Obamacare: the gift that won’t stop giving.
Obamacare: the bureaucratic analog of genital herpes
When you call the IRS they tell you that they’re not responsible for giving you incorrect information. If you can’t rely on their specially trained employees who can you rely on?
As another morning unfolds , I am left wondering which emotion is fitting; laughter or crying. Close to a million people? Unreal - more evidence of Reagan’s wisdom; government is not the solution.....
Competence is so over rated.
What the Republicans should do is to offer up a bill granting a $1000 “we goofed” coupon to people who were misadvised as to their subsidy status.
This government has to start paying for its’ myriad errors. By defunding itself.
I’d bet the “navigators” were instructed to be as generous as possible with their estimates of how much of a subsidy an enrollee might get, to encourage as many people as possible to get enrolled just for the propaganda value of the numbers.
bttt
Potential enrollees were told not to worry & “just guess” on the income question. A lot of them “guessed” low (gee, who woulda’ thunk that?) & now are going to have to repay part or perhaps all of their subsidies. Also, if they allowed “auto-enroll” to happen for 2015 without going back on the exchange to shop around, THIS will be happening: (excerpt from link @ http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2014/11/how-many-people-have-enrolled-so-far-in.html )
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This is all compounded by something called the baseline Silver Plan’s effect on subsidies. The second lowest cost Silver plan in any market determines what a person’s subsidy will be. Last year, that plan was probably the plan that got the biggest enrollment and also the plan with the biggest rate increase this year. So, it’s probably the plan George has.
In fact, you might recall a recent briefing paper by actuarial firm Milliman in which they pointed out that even a modest increase in premium by market leaders of 5% could lead to net after subsidy cost increases of 30% to near 100% for subsidized enrollees.
But because George’s plan is no longer the baseline plan, even though George is on subsidy and he is supposed to be shielded from any rate increase by the taxpayer, his premium is going up unless he changes to the insurance company that now holds the honors as having the second lowest cost Silver Plan.
So, George scrambles, in the very few days between his getting his January premium invoice (likely about December 6th) and the January 1 cut-off for open enrollment on December 15, to sign-up for that lower cost plan and save his full subsidy.
But then George’s friend Mary tells him that the new second lowest cost Silver Plan is one of those terrible narrow network plans that restricts providers in order to be able to charge the lowest rate and suggests he sign up for a third plan that costs a little more but has his doctor in the network.
So, how many enrollments will the Obama administration and the insurance companies be counting here on their far from finished Obamacare backroom system?
George’s first carrier will count him because it was too much bother for George to figure out whom to call to cancel his coverage––he will just not pay the bill. But his carrier, by regulation, can’t knock him off the rolls for three months––not until April 1.
George enrolled in his second choice but never bothered to pay that bill but the carrier will count him likely into February as the health plans give people plenty of time to pay their bill in what will be a very confusing situation.
And, of course, George’s third carrier will count him.
So, that is one person being counted three times and we won’t have just George’s status cleared up until George’s 2014 carrier can delete him from its rolls in April.
So, how many people have enrolled in Obamacare say, by December 1, or December 15, or January 1, or February 1?
I will have no frickin idea, don’t even ask.
So much for Healthcare.Gov working really well.
But I am sure the Obama administration will be telling us the website, call centers, and carriers are very busy with people all excited about Obamacare. They just won’t be defining excitement.
There is just so much wrong with this article. It states “the administration” sent out incorrect information. Since when does “the administration” send out tax information??? Do they mean the IRS??? If they do mean the IRS then they say that the people that received the incorrect information will be contacted via e-mail and for years we’ve been told that the IRS doesn’t contact you via e-mail. This article raises FAR more questions than it answers. What a fustercluck.
Yeah....like this guy:
Navigator to clients: "Your voting record does nor conform to standards"
"Medication denied in both cases, aspirin and colonoscopy prescribed"
A CPA we know reports that in the last few years he has enjoyed a high win rate in tax court — the IRS reps often don’t know their own regs.
The administration sent incorrect tax information.
That’s par for the Obama tribe can’t do anything right.
I don't believe it, there is no possible way I can believe that it was only 800,000.
“We are going to be gifted with a healthcare plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don’t which purportedly covers at least 10 million more people without adding a single new doctor but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it passed by a Congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves FRom it and signed by a President who smokes with funding administered by a Treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefit takes effect by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and financed by a country that is broke.
“So, what the blank could possibly go wrong?”
Dr. Barbara Bellar, MD
See the video at http://www.theabsurdreport.com/2014/dr-barbara-bellar-sums-up-obamacare-in-one-sentence/
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