Over the past couple of days I have been scrambling, trying to figure out what the hell to do about our health insurance conundrum. I was researching exemptions because one of my coworkers told me her son always claims the “Coverage is Considered Unaffordable” exemption on his tax return. At first I scoffed and didn’t think it would work for us, but as I looked into it, I realized it would totally apply to us. “Affordable” in 2017 is considered no more than 8.16% of your household income.
I did the math, and since the lowest cost plan available to us is $1,444.26 / month (which means $17,335 / year), that would mean we could make up to $212,000 dollars in our household in 2017 and still be able to claim this exemption.
Um, sign me up. We are currently making nowhere near that amount, and if we somehow win the lottery 2017, I’ll gladly pay the 2.5% tax penalty and thank my lucky stars that we are so blessed.
Don’t get me wrong – it still makes me SUPER nervous to be uninsured. As I’ve mentioned before, our acute care is done for free by my employer, but we’d be in trouble if something big happened. That being said, things are changing with my work situation right now, and we will hopefully have employer (partially) sponsored healthcare coverage come April 1st or 15th, so we have decided to keep our fingers crossed for the next 3.5 months that none of us have any serious health concerns while we are uninsured.
Healthcare in America. What a mess.