Austin American-Statesman: Feds Extend Affordable Care Act Enrollment Period

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By Tim Eaton

Federal health officials offered a break Friday to uninsured Texans who could be facing fines for not obtaining health insurance by the Feb. 15 deadline established by the Affordable Care Act.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services created a special enrollment period for uninsured people who face fines when they file their income taxes this year so that they do not face higher fines next year. This special enrollment will be only for people in states with federally run marketplaces, like Texas.

CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner said the federal government recognized that this is the first tax filing season where consumers may have to pay a fine for not having health insurance coverage.

The special enrollment period run from March 15 to April 30."Our priority is to make sure consumers understand the new requirement to enroll in health coverage and to provide those who were not aware or did not understand the requirement with an opportunity to enroll in affordable coverage this year," Tavenner said in a news release.

The idea behind the extension, which was called for by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, and others, is to provide relief to people who will see increasing fines for being uninsured. Fines this year are $95 or 1 percent of household income, but next year, they will jump to $325 or 2 percent of a household income, whichever is higher.

"As I urged, we should take every opportunity to encourage families to enroll in affordable, quality health insurance," Doggett said in a statement. "Now, thanks to the change I sought, taxpayers seeing the financial consequences of being uninsured will be able to enroll for coverage sooner instead of being forced to wait for the next enrollment period."

The announcement of the special enrollment period came after an embarrassing bungle by the federal government.

About 800,000 taxpayers who enrolled in insurance policies through HealthCare.gov received erroneous tax information from the government, and they were urged on Friday to hold off on filing tax returns until the error could be corrected, The New York Times reported Friday morning.

Consumers can expect to receive corrected data in the first week of March. With the new data, some taxpayers will owe more and some will owe less, and officials said they did not know why the error had occurred, the Times reported.

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