Health Insurance Through The Affordable Care Act

Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010, reduced-cost health insurance premiums are offered through the online marketplace.  However, through 2020 you did not qualify for those reduced premiums if your household income exceeded 400% of the federal poverty level based on the number of people in your household.  This was a hard cap. If your income exceeded 400% of the federal poverty level, you did not qualify for any reduced price premiums and if you did get reduced price premiums, you had to repay them all to the government with your tax return.

In 2021 the law changed so that you may still potentially qualify for reduced price premiums even if your household income exceeded the 400% poverty level.  Thus, it is no longer a hard cap wherein you must automatically repay all the reduced premiums received if your income is too high.  Now it is a rolling scale so that the higher your income becomes, the more you must pay for the insurance premiums or potentially repay reduced premiums already received.  This qualifies more people to receive the reduced cost health insurance premiums through the marketplace.

This increased eligibility was set to expire at the end of 2022 until Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) last month which extended the increased eligibility through 2025.  Now it is still possible to receive reduced-cost health insurance through the online marketplace for the years 2023-2025 if your income exceeds 400% of the federal poverty level.  In light of how expensive health insurance is, it may be worth the effort to see if you potentially qualify for the reduced-cost health insurance.

Many of you still may not qualify, because your income is too high. Below is a table to see what the 2022 federal poverty income level is for different family sizes and what 400% of that level is.  Federal poverty figures for 2023 are not released yet, but generally, they increase from the previous year. If you think you may qualify or want to discuss it, please call us and we can help.  You can also go to www.healthcare.gov for more information or to apply for the online marketplace health insurance.