Posted on February 9, 2018 by nahucompliance

The new tax law passed by Congress and signed by the President does not repeal the individual mandate as many people have assumed. The tax law actually zeroes out the individual mandate penalty. And, importantly, this action takes effect in 2019.

The actual law text is:

SEC. 11081. ELIMINATION OF SHARED RESPONSIBILITY PAYMENT FOR
INDIVIDUALS FAILING TO MAINTAIN MINIMUM ESSENTIAL COVERAGE.

(a) IN GENERAL.—Section 5000A(c) is amended—

(1) in paragraph (2)(B)(iii), by striking ‘‘2.5 percent’’ and inserting ‘‘Zero percent’’, and

(2) in paragraph (3)—

(A) by striking ‘‘$695’’ in subparagraph (A) and inserting ‘‘$0’’, and

(B) by striking subparagraph (D).

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2018.

For individuals who question whether the IRS will continue to enforce the individual mandate, knowing that penalties will go away next year, only time will tell. For the 2018 tax filing season, the IRS has stated that they will not accept tax returns that omit information specifying whether an individual had coverage or whether they qualified for an exemption from the individual mandate.
Opinions are mixed on what effect no penalty assessment will have on how many people maintain health coverage. Employers may find that some employees will drop employer-sponsored coverage since the employees will no longer face a penalty if they don’t have coverage.

Some individuals may no longer purchase individual health insurance. But, the extent to which individuals purchased coverage to avoid the somewhat low individual mandate penalty is unknown.

One likely outcome is that there will be an uptick in adverse selection. Adverse selection occurs when individuals who believe that they will have medical expenses seek out or retain health insurance coverage when they might not otherwise do so. Until the extent of any adverse selection is understood, insurers are likely to be conservative in their pricing or in their decisions on which markets they will participate in.