How is yearly income calculated for "healthcare not affordable?"

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
June 3, 2019
1 reply
25 views

Neither me nor my spouse were eligible for employee healthcare at the start of 2017. Our monthly income was around $2,000 per month. (Cheapest plan was way over 8% of that.) We did not enroll in ACA healthcare during open enrollment, and thus were not covered for the entire year.

However, later in the year we ended up getting some unexpected money from stocks, resulting in us having an income for the entire year that was high enough for the cheapest plan not to have been 8% of our total yearly income anymore.

Since open enrollment period happened at a time when we had very low income, (which we expected to have for the entire year,) and there was no opportunity to enroll after having more money, I'm wondering if healthcare can still count as "unaffordable." It was not affordable at time we were allowed to purchase it.

Thanks!

Best answer by TaxGuyBill

Unfortunately, it is based on your annual income, so it sounds like you would not qualify for that.

For any future readers, the cost of insurance is the cost after the Premium Tax Credit ("subsidy") that you could have received. So the calculation is quite complex, and unfortunately most people do not qualify for it.