The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has covered the impact of the Affordable Care Act on Georgia since the law passed in 2010. And coverage by our team of reporters has only intensified in recent months, from in-depth explanations of key provisions to our creation of an online calculator that estimates the tax credit you may receive on the Health Insurance Marketplace.
Top 10 states for tax credits
This chart shows the states with the most residents who will be eligible for a subsidy on the Health Insurance Marketplace, according to a report released by Kaiser Family Foundation on Tuesday. The “potential market” column is the estimate of people who are uninsured or who don’t have group insurance and whose incomes would make them eligible to shop on the marketplace.
State Eligible for tax credit Total potential market
Texas 2,049,000 3,143,000
California 1,903,000 3,291,000
Florida 1,587,000 2,545,000
New York 779,000 1,264,000
Pennsylvania 715,000 1,276,000
North Carolina 684,000 1,073,000
Georgia 654,000 1,063,000
Ohio 544,000 812,000
Virginia 518,000 823,000
Illinois 501,000 937,000
How the tax credit works
The “advance” tax credit is in effect a discount on the cost of insurance purchased on the Health Insurance Marketplace. It’s available to people whose incomes are between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty rate.
If you get one, the tax credit applies right away, meaning you can take advantage of it when you pay your premiums each month.
Here’s an example of how it works, according to the AJC’s subsidy calculator at myajc.com/healthcare. A family of four with an annual household income of $70,000 is considered to be at 297 percent of the poverty threshold. (This scenario assumes two adults, 39 and 37, with two children.) If the family lives in Atlanta and acquires a typical silver-tier plan 0n the insurance marketplace, the plan would cost about $8,635 per year, with a tax credit of about $2,028. So for the monthly premium of roughly $720, the family would pay $550 and the government would cover the rest.
If the family’s income exceeded $94,200 (or 400 percent of poverty), it would not be eligible for a tax credit. Likewise, if the family’s income was just $48,000, it would be eligible for a greater tax credit.
More than 650,000 Georgians will be eligible for federal tax credits to help them pay for plans on the Health Insurance Marketplace, a new report shows.
Georgia is among the states that stand to benefit the most from the credits, according to a study released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The Affordable Care Act created the credits as a way to lower costs for people who are uninsured or don’t get affordable coverage through their jobs.
Of course, people can’t take advantage of the tax credit if they can’t get through the bug-infested HealthCare.gov website.
Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner told a Senate committee Tuesday that the site has significantly improved in recent weeks, with web pages loading faster and more users logging on successfully. She said roughly 700,000 consumers have submitted applications so far, with about half coming through the federal exchange. The federal government is overseeing 34 sites for states, including Georgia.
“We know the initial consumer experience on HealthCare.gov has been very frustrating,” said Tavenner, who heads the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The hearing marked Tavenner’s second week in a row appearing before Congress. It also featured Georgia Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson sitting in front of a sign that said, “Tip of the iceberg,” the Associated Press reported. The sign showed a floating iceberg with”website failures” above the waterline. Under the waterline were such warnings as canceled coverage, higher co-pay and deductibles, premium increases and fraud and identify theft.
Administration officials have so far not released details on how many Americans have successfully enrolled in insurance policies since the site’s disastrous Oct. 1 launch. Initial data is expected to be made public as soon as next week. (In the House on Tuesday, the Ways and Means Committee chairman issued a subpoena for the enrollment data, demanding that it be delivered by Friday, the AP said.)
Tavenner said she is pleased by the “quick improvements” that have been made so far, noting that the agency has doubled the number of servers to handle more traffic. She added that the site is now able to register 17,000 customers per hour with “almost no errors.”
The Kaiser study released Tuesday said more than 17 million people nationwide could be eligible for tax credits through the Health Insurance Marketplace next year. Consumers with incomes from 100 to 400 percent of the federal poverty level or, roughly $11,500 to $46,000 for an individual, may be eligible for the credits to help lower their premiums.
The credits are only available for plans bought through the marketplace, which mainly caters to the uninsured, the self-employed and workers who don’t get affordable coverage through their employers. Most Americans get coverage through their jobs and will continue to do so.
Families and individuals with low-income are most likely to benefit from the credits, said Gary Claxton, a vice president with Kaiser.
Southern states, in particular, where incomes tend to be lower, will also benefit more from the credits than some northern and midwestern states, Claxton said. Nearly 1.6 million people in Florida may qualify for credits — the third highest state estimate behind Texas and California, according to Kaiser.
The nonprofit estimates that about 60 percent of the 1 million or so Georgians it expects to shop on the marketplace could qualify for tax credits.
The Kaiser study sheds more light on how many low-income families in Georgia can benefit from the Affordable Care Act, said Tim Sweeney, an analyst with the left-leaning Georgia Budget & Policy Institute.
“Tax credits are a big part of why it’s going to be more affordable (to buy insurance) for a lot of people,” he said.
Open enrollment for the marketplace lasts through March 31, but people must buy coverage by Dec. 15. for it to take effect on Jan. 1.
In the meantime, officials say they are working around the clock to get HealthCare.gov working as seamlessly as possible by the end of the month.
“We expect the user experience to continue to improve with each passing week,” Tavenner said.
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