Individual Mandate under ACA (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
Revised May 13, 2015 |
| Report Number |
R41331 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Janemarie Mulvey, Specialist in Health Care Financing; Manon Scales, Research Associate; Annie L. Mach, Analyst in Health Care Financing |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
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Summary:
Since 2014, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA; P.L. 111-148, as amended) has required most individuals to maintain health insurance coverage or potentially to pay a penalty for noncompliance. Specifically, most individuals are required to maintain minimum essential coverage for themselves and their dependents. Minimum essential coverage is a term defined in the ACA and its implementing regulations and includes most private and public coverage (e.g., employer-sponsored coverage, individual coverage, Medicare, and Medicaid, among others). Some individuals are exempt from the mandate and the penalty, and others may receive financial assistance to help them pay for the cost of health insurance coverage and the costs associated with using health care services.
Individuals who do not maintain minimum essential coverage and are not exempt from the mandate have to pay a penalty for each month of noncompliance with the mandate. The penalty is the greater of a flat dollar amount or a percentage of applicable income. In 2014, the annual penalty was the greater of $95 or 1% of applicable income; the penalty increased to the greater of $325 or 2% of applicable income in 2015. The penalty will increase again in 2016 and will be adjusted for inflation thereafter.
The penalty is assessed through the federal tax filing process. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can attempt to collect any owed penalties by reducing the amount of an individual's tax refund; however, individuals who fail to pay the penalty will not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty for such failure. The Secretary of the Treasury cannot file notice of lien or file a levy on any property for a taxpayer who does not pay the penalty.
Certain individuals are exempt from the individual mandate and the penalty. For example, individuals with qualifying religious exemptions and those whose household income is below the filing threshold for federal income taxes are not subject to the penalty. The ACA allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to grant hardship exemptions from the penalty to anyone determined to have suffered a hardship with respect to the capability to obtain coverage. The Secretary of HHS has identified a number of different circumstances that would allow individuals to receive a hardship exemption, including an individual not being eligible for Medicaid based on a state's decision not to carry out the ACA expansion and financial or domestic circumstances that prevent an individual from obtaining coverage (e.g., eviction or recent experience of domestic violence).
The ACA includes several reporting requirements designed, in part, to assist individuals in providing evidence of having met the mandate. Every entity (including employers, insurers, and government programs) that provides minimum essential coverage to any individual must present a return to the IRS and a statement to the covered individual that includes information about the individual's health insurance coverage.
