Molly,
If you arranged, signed up and received your health insurance through the Marketplace (Healthcare.gov), you were sharing the cost of your monthly health insurance premiums with the government. The government agrees to pay up to a certain amount of your premium to "help" you out. These "tax credits" are based on your projected total family income for the year.
If your family picked out an insurance plan offered through the Marketplace and the total premium every month was really $2,000, the government might say that you qualify to have $1,300 of it be paid by them and the remaining $700 paid by you. You can take the maximum allowed but be careful. It's a good idea to not take every bit you qualify for. You may have to pay back some or all of it at the end of the year.
You would find this out when you did your taxes for that year and they ask you to input all the numbers from the 1095-A for the 12 months you had the insurance. The Marketplace's form is called the 1095-A but that is not the form that the IRS uses. They have their own form and it is the 8962
You take all the figures reported on the 1095-A and input them on the IRS form 8962. Why they don't refer to them as one or the other I don't know. If you HAD the Marketplace insurance, the person or people who paid for it are the ones who will get a 1095-A in the mail. If not, the form is available when you sign in to your Healthcare.gov account and look for a link that may say" tax forms" or "1095-A"
If you had insurance through an employer or you bought your own plan on your own, just disregard the page that references the Marketplace or Healthcare.gov insurance. If it asks if you had that insurance, just click "no"and go to the next page.
Hope this helps
