2015 sign-up deadline for Affordable Care Act marketplace fast approaching

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Time is running out if you want to get insurance through the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace.

“If you don’t have insurance through your work or a public program like Medicare, or buy coverage directly, the marketplace might be a good option. But you really need to act quickly because enrollment ends Feb. 15,” said Graham McCaulley, associate professor of family finances for University of Missouri Extension.

The current sign-up period is for 2015 insurance. If you didn’t have medical coverage last year, you may be facing a fee.

“For the first time this year, the fee for not maintaining health insurance throughout the year is going to kick in and it’s going to be reconciled during the tax filing process,” said Brenda Procter, associate professor of family finances for MU Extension.

The fee you pay will depend on your income.

“The fee for not having insurance in 2014 is either $95 per adult and $47.50 per child, which maxes out at $285 for a family, or it’s 1 percent of your household income, whichever’s higher,” McCaulley said.

For many, it will probably be 1 percent, which is calculated using your income for the year minus your filing threshold, McCaulley said. That 1 percent would be for an entire year without insurance. If you only went six months, it would be half, he said.

“To put this in perspective, there’s a maximum fee of just under $2,500 for an individual or $12,000 for a family, but to trigger a $12,000 fee a family would need an income of over a million dollars,” McCaulley said.

The fees will increase over the next few years.

“It’s 1 percent for not having insurance in 2014, 2 percent for 2015 and 2.5 percent for 2016 and beyond,” McCaulley said. “And flat fees go up each year too.”

Not everyone will face a fee. For example, a single person under age 65 making less than $10,150 won’t have to pay, McCaulley said. Another exemption would be if the lowest-priced coverage available to you costs more than 8 percent of your household income.

The Internal Revenue Service added another exemption last year, Procter said. According to the IRS, individuals in states that didn’t expand Medicaid, like Missouri, and whose income is below 138 percent of the federal poverty line will be exempt from the fee.

There are also exemptions for hardship. If you were homeless, evicted, filed for bankruptcy, or suffered a fire or flood, you may be exempt as well, McCaulley said. At http://healthcare.gov you’ll find a full list of exempted hardships.

If you miss this year’s sign-up period, you might be eligible for another enrollment opportunity.

“If you have a life-changing event, then you can ask for a special enrollment period,” Procter said. “That would be something like a marriage or divorce, job loss, or graduating from college and losing your student health care.”

Procter said you do need to act quickly after one of these events because you only have 60 days to report the change. She says you will need to go to healthcare.gov and apply for a special enrollment period.

You don’t have to wander through the health insurance landscape alone.

“There are people who can help you in person. There’s navigators, there’s certified application counselors who can sit down and do this with you, or you can go to the website to do it yourself,” McCaulley said.

To learn more, visit the MU Extension Health Insurance Education Initiative website at http://extension.missouri.edu/insure.