Two in three Obamacare beneficiaries had to repay subsidies [income from welfare too high]

Washington Examiner ^ | April 28, 2015 | Paige Winfield Cunningham

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Nearly two in three Americans who bought subsidized health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges this year had to pay some of the federal dollars back, according to new data from H&R Block.

That's because they presumably collected more federal aid than their income qualified them for. In that case, consumers must either pay some of it back or — in most cases — the IRS will subtract it from their tax refund.

Policymakers have expressed concern that low-income people could struggle with paying back the subsidies — or suffer if their tax refunds are greatly reduced because of overpayments.

The average amount consumers owed back to the government was $729, cutting their potential tax refunds by almost one-third, said the tax preparation company.

On the flip side, one in four Obamacare recipients collected fewer subsidies than their income qualified them for. Those consumers saw their tax refunds boosted by an average of $425.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

So, their EITC - Earned Income Tax CREDIT was docked?

That's not coming from a "tax refund" (except in accounting land where a small increase is considered a cut if it doesn't pass a certain threshold).

I guess Obamacare is eyeballing the $55B annual windfall going to the "working poor."

Which brings to mind, "If they're big enough to give you everything, they're big enough to take it away."

[laplata]

Surprise, surprise. /s

[Reddy]

Wait- were they told to pay it back or did they really pay it back.

Probably what you said, they got less “free” money on their tax “refund” than they expected.

[Secret Agent Man]

The Free $h1t crowd thought this was gonna be “free”.

Now they’re just $h1tting themselves.

[Secret Agent Man]

Well, we were warning them.

They were telling us to go eff ourselves because we were racist.

[A CA Guy]

Not even at the point yet where hundreds of billions are going to go away from the Feds yet.
Dems wants this cemented in and then they will shackle the public with the unpadded real bill.

[Yaelle]

The way this is written, it makes it seem like the govt is Santa Claus, and a tax refund is a human right.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Yes it does; we’ve fallen that far in the logic department.

[Veggie Todd]

They’ll still vote ‘Rat because it’s the Republican’s fault.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Yes. The lie that seems to work on those who HAVE to believe.

Generational welfare dependency - each generation becomes less able to cope, is more easily directed, definitely programed to resent and therefore reliably useful to the Democratic Party.

[grania]

I'm a bit confused. If this the free money they're given every year, it's being redirected back to the gov, not to reduce the deficit, but for health care. If that's the case, it would've been money low-income folk would tend to spend locally. It will decimate already difficult budgeting.

Economically, money is draining out of local economies and upward. Money going to people who will spend all of it locally is the best possible start to a solution to what's happening.

[EVO X]

If that's the case, it would've been money low-income folk would tend to spend locally. It will decimate already difficult budgeting.

If people have to pay back subsidies one of 2 things happened. They either under reported their taxable income or their taxable income increased after applying for the subsidies. I've read that approximately 24M people switch jobs a year. They are likely switching for better paying jobs and many cash out the meager 401K instead of rolling it over.