The individual mandate was a portion of the ACA that essentially taxed citizens, via penalties, that did not have ACA approved coverage. The idea behind the individual mandate was to sway American’s to purchase health insurance coverage so that, as a pool, the price of health insurance would decrease. The more healthy individuals in the pool, the less health insurance costs would be. With the passing of guarantee issue for medical insurance, or the ACA no longer allowing insurance carriers to deny coverage based off of preexisting conditions, the insurance pool needed more healthy members to subsidize those that were going to be heavy users of health care.  The individual mandate, therefore, was one of the method’s used to increase membership by as much as possible to make the insurance pool as healthy as possible to absorb the costs of those with preexisting conditions.

So why are we talking about the individual mandate?

As you may know, President Trump signed a tax reform bill into law on December 22, 2017, which included an end date (2019) to the individual mandate penalty. Without the individual mandate penalty, which was severe, the individual mandate has no bite and come 2019, is effectively dead.

The important update regarding the individual mandate is that it is, at the time of this post, still alive and well. You are still required to have ACA compliant health insurance throughout the year of 2018 (unless you qualify for an exception, which you can find on healthcare.gov’s website). If you do not have coverage for this year, you will likely be subject to the penalty.

Does the removal of the Individual Mandate also change other mandates within the ACA?

We have been asked, a few times, regarding how the individual mandate’s penalty removal effects other provisions. Please know, all other ACA provisions for both employees and employers must still be adhered to – they aren’t going anywhere. This includes, but is not limited to, the employer shared responsibility rules, also known as the Employer Mandate. All reporting requirements for employers are also still alive and well.

If you have any questions, please contact your account manager at Buettner Insurance.