Protect Access to Affordable Health Insurance for California's Working Families!

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Alert Source: 
CPEHN (California Pan-Ethnic Health Network)
Date: 
Oct 24 2011 - 3:29pm

Action Alert

This summer, the federal government issued draft regulations to determine how subsidies through premium tax credits for health insurance will be calculated under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). These tax credits are critical to help low-income working families afford to pay for coverage. However, the way the IRS proposes to calculate these tax credits could leave millions of families without the necessary financial assistance they need.  

Please send in your comments for stronger premium tax credits for families TODAY. Comments must be received by 2 pm Pacific Time on October 31st.

Suggested Comments:
  • Up to 2.4 million Californians may be eligible for premium tax credits in the Exchange. Of those newly eligible, two-thirds will be from communities of color. The ability to afford family health care coverage through the exchange is critical to the health of our communities.
  • The IRS’ interpretation of who is eligible for tax credits is based on whether the cost of coverage for just the employee is more than 9.5 percent of the family income.
  • This is unreasonable because it does not take into account the cost of coverage for the entire family when calculating eligibility for the tax credit. On average most families will have to pay at least 14 percent of their income for employer-sponsored family coverage, leaving millions of families ineligible for assistance with purchasing health insurance.
  • We are strongly opposed to the proposed rule that uses the cost of employee-only coverage to determine the eligibility of family members for the premium tax credit. (Section 1.36B-2(c)(3)(v)).
  • We ask the Department to revise the affordability test for a family with dependents to include the cost of family coverage, not just self-only coverage when calculating the tax credit amount for working families.

Comments are due by Monday, October 31st, 2 pm Pacific Time.
Submitting comments is easy! Just cut and paste this text, add your organization’s contact information, and then submit the comments online.

Go to: www.regulations.gov and enter code: IRS REG-131491-10. Then go to the first item on the list and click "Submit a Comment" on the right side of the screen.