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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFederal Rule Limits Aid to Families Who Can’t Afford Employers’ Health Coverage
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/us/politics/irs-to-base-insurance-affordability-on-single-coverage.html?ref=us&_r=1&The Obama administration adopted a strict definition of affordable health insurance on Wednesday that will deny federal financial assistance to millions of Americans with modest incomes who cannot afford family coverage offered by employers.
In deciding whether an employers health plan is affordable, the Internal Revenue Service said it would look at the cost of coverage only for an individual employee, not for a family. Family coverage might be prohibitively expensive, but federal subsidies would not be available to help buy insurance for children in the family.
<snip>
In 2012, according to an annual survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, total premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance averaged $5,615 a year for single coverage and $15,745 for family coverage. The employees share of the premium averaged $951 for individual coverage and more than four times as much, $4,316, for family coverage.
Under the I.R.S. rule, such costs would be considered affordable for a family making $35,000 a year, even though the family would have to spend 12 percent of its income for full coverage under the employers plan.
The tax agency proposed this approach in August 2011 and made no change in the definition of affordable coverage despite protests from advocates for children and low-income people and many employers. Employers did not want to be required to pay for coverage of employees dependents. But they said that family members should have access to subsidies so they could buy insurance on their own.
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Federal Rule Limits Aid to Families Who Can’t Afford Employers’ Health Coverage (Original Post)
eridani
Feb 2013
OP
The public needs to be paying more attention and providing input on these rules nt/
eridani
Feb 2013
#4
the documentation is hundreds of pages of legalese, purposefully obscure so that the public
HiPointDem
Feb 2013
#5
elleng
(130,908 posts)1. Notice of Proposed Rulemaking discussed here, for information:
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)2. K&R
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)3. kick
eridani
(51,907 posts)4. The public needs to be paying more attention and providing input on these rules nt/
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)5. the documentation is hundreds of pages of legalese, purposefully obscure so that the public
doesn't have a clue what's in it except what the media tells them.
the public is purposefully excluded from 'comment'.
eridani
(51,907 posts)6. Or what they can find on various health care websites
http://www.pnhp.org/ is a good start
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)7. kick