The question on the page before you see that there was a “lapse” in coverage is causing the issue.
On the previous page you should see the question, “What type of High Deductible Health Plan did [spouse] have on December 1, 2016?”. The choices are Family, Self only, or None.
If the spouse had been covered under the taxpayer's family plan, you might think you should answer Family to the question. However, the answer should be None.
It is referring to what type of plan the spouse held in their name on December 1, 2016. If the spouse had their own separate HDHP on that date, then choose the type of plan that the spouse had. If instead the spouse was covered under the plan in the taxpayer's name, then you should choose None.
To go back to the section of your return to answer the questions again, use the following steps:
this could be explained better in turbotax. Even the explanation of an eligible individual is not very straightforward.
+1 The question in turbotax is not clear enough. Please fix it.
Thanks for the answer but this is super unclear. If my spouse is covered under my family plan I would surely expect to answer "family". The wording on that question talks about selecting "None" if my spouse failed to become an eligible individual which has nothing to do with my situation. I had to resort to Google to try and find this answer.
Agree with the other comments here. Unclear wording.
Hello Intuit, fix this! "What type of HDHP did <spouse> have on December 1, 2016?" says nothing about it being them on a separate plan from the primary filer. Add a note that is what you intend with the question, please!
I agree with everyone else. Make the wording clearer so we're not searching for this same answer when filing next year's taxes again. Thanks for the explanation though.
Yes, totally agree with everyone else. Thanks for the "right" answer, but please fix the wording of the question for next year because it is definitely unclear.
It's 2018 now and this is still not fixed, at least in the desktop version of Turbotax Premier. Please fix this.
Yes, I made the same mistake as I did last year in answering the question, and I had to come back here!
Agreed - a baffling lack of guidance, which is what we're paying Intuit for. Something this simple should be noted on the screens, especially more than a year later.
Thanks for the explanation. I would expect this to be clarified in the software itself.
A year later this is STILL a problem? Thank God for the internet, because TT had no guidance for this. All it would take is to copy and paste this answer into the software. Come on, Intuit, you can do better.
This is literally insane. The page should never have made it through testing in the first place.
shame on TurboTax, we're paying you to have a product that correctly and clearly guides through the tax filing process and this issue is one of a few I've run into this year that make me question their overall product
Stepped right into this issue today: Wife had HDHP (high deductible health plan) for 9 of the 12 months in 2019 (3 jobs). Husband had full coverage all year under his work (12 months). Somehow, TurboTax assumes the husband now also has an HDHP plan with a lapse in coverage. Cannot figure out how to access and enter for husband to match Form 1095-B. Seems like there should be a way to actually enter directly from the Form1095-Bs for each person, without making an assumption everything is the same for both? Not a problem, if IRS doesn't mind some inaccuracies, but always hate to send a return through with issues like this.