UNITED STATES—The Department of U.S. Treasury overpaid almost $4 billion in subsidies to Obamacare customers through tax credits in 2018.
The U.S. Inspector General reported last week that the way the law is written makes it difficult to collect a portion back. According to the Washington Times, the IRS overpaid $3.7 billion in Obamacare subsidies. They were able to recover $2.7 billion which cost the taxpayers $1 billion.
Eight million people enrolled in Obamacare in 2017. According to The White House website, individuals now pay only a quarter of the cost of their health insurance because they are receiving, “ever-growing taxpayer subsidies to insulate them from Obamacare’s high premiums.”
“But there is a second group of Americans who faced the full premium increases driven by the law’s broken regulations. Roughly 5 million Americans, as of 2017 have chosen to pay premiums without subsidies while 28 million other Americans remain uninsured, many priced out of coverage entirely,” the site stated. “Americans that make too much to receive subsidies have begun to opt out of the insurance market en masse.”
The White House indicates that an independent analysis found that the entire unsubsidized individual insurance market shrank more than 40 percent from 2016-2018.
According to the Washinton Times, in 2017 the government paid $5.8 billion in overages leaving $3.5 billion unpaid. Numbers for 2018 numbers were better than 2017.
According to figures from the IRS over 4 million people chose not to take part in Obamacare in 2016 and paid a penalty in 2017. There will be no penalty for not having insurance in 2019.
“Obamacare is hurting American families, farmers, and small businesses with skyrocketing health insurance costs. Moreover, soaring deductibles and co-pays have made already unaffordable plans unusable. Close to half of U.S. counties are projected to have only one health insurer on their exchanges in 2018. Replacing Obamacare will force insurance companies to compete for their customers with lower costs and higher-quality service. In the meantime, the President is using his executive authority to reduce barriers to more affordable options for Americans and U.S. businesses,” states the White House on its website.
