The Obama administration announced Friday that 800,000 people who enrolled in insurance policies through HealthCare.gov have received incorrect tax information. As a result, they have been urged to avoid filing tax returns until the error gets resolved.
Beyond the overall issue that comes with an error like this, which officials say they can’t identify the source of, some 50,000 of these people have already filed their tax returns, which means they will likely have to resubmit information to the federal government.
“We’re still investigating the cause,” Andrew M. Slavitt, the No. 2 official at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on a press call Friday morning, according to The Washington Post. “There were clearly some intermittent issue.”
The correct data should be received by consumers the first week of March. Because of the incorrect information, some people will owe more than what the data originally showed and some will owe less.
Following pressure from congressional Democrats, the Obama administration has also announced that there will be an extended “special enrollment period” around tax filing season for Americans who didn’t realize they would face penalties for not purchasing insurance last year. Slavitt said the period would last from March 15 to April 30, according to The New York Times.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Slavitt says the extension is not meant to “increase numbers for numbers’ sake.” He says this extension is meant to be a one-time thing. “Our intention is that this is one year only for people who have not been in the communication loop around the tax penalty.”
It’s unclear how many people could qualify for the extension and how the department will know that the consumers were previously unaware of penalties, but those in support of the extension believe it will make a difference in getting more Americans insured.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
“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,” said Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas.
The special enrollment period will undoubtedly increase the number of people receiving health insurance subsidies. This news comes right before the King v. Burwell case that challenges payment of the subsidies in more than 30 states, which is set for the Supreme Court on March 4 .
