Keep hearing that today, 12/23, is the deadline to purchase health insurance effective, 1/1/14. Is that deadline only if you're purchasing insurance through the healthcare.gov website? Can't one just purchase health insurance themselves before the end of the year, effective 1/1/14?
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"Today is the deadline for Americans to purchase health insurance on the exchanges, if they want that insurance to take effect on Jan. 1."
Copied from NBC news site. Hope this answers your question.
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According to what I've read in several places, today's deadline applies only to the exchanges - which generally means for people who can't get health insurance any other way. And the deadline applies only to starting coverage on January 1, 2014.
People are still free to get health insurance anywhere else. The deadline for proof of insurance from any source is January 31, 2014 in order to avoid the tax penalty for being uninsured.
After that there will be a tax imposed for every adult and every child for every month a person is uninsured, which will be totaled at the end of the year and assessed on a person's tax return for 2014. Anybody who chooses to pay the penalty instead can get coverage from anywhere else at any time or not get insurance at all.
There is apparently a grace period until March 31, 2014 for signing up through the exchanges. For everyone else it looks like the deadline for proof of insurance is still January 31.Comment
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Thank you to both of you!
My current insurance has been cancelled as of 12/31/13 due to the ACA. I need to pick up insurance for an effective date of 1/1/14.Comment
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I haven't read this article, but remembered seeing the headline in the Washington Post this morning.
Headline and Link:
Obama Administration quietly extends health-care
enrollment deadline by a day
http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...236_story.htmlComment
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The deadline to enroll in health insurance via the exchanges has been extended by one day (until midnight Christmas Eve).Comment
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In addition to the one day extension today's Huffington Post says that there have been some other changes.
"Individuals whose policies were canceled because they didn't comply with the new law's benefit mandates are now exempt from the individual mandate to have insurance and may choose bare-bones catastrophic plans previously available only to people younger than 30 or those who demonstrated a financial hardship. Previously, Obama asked state insurance regulators and health insurers to renew the policies that were being canceled, although this has produced mixed results. The administration also implemented a one-month extension of the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, a temporary program for people who couldn't get private coverage that was supposed to expire on Dec. 31."Comment
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