<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;" align="center">The most recent study released from the Internal Revenue Service reveals that almost 8.1 million taxpayers paid almost $1.7 Billion in Obamacare penalties in 2014.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Beginning in 2014, the Affordable Care Act required that individuals must have had health care coverage, qualified for a health coverage exemption, or made a shared responsibility payment with a tax return,&rdquo; wrote the IRS in the report. &ldquo;A health care individual responsibility payment was made on 8.1 million returns for $1.7 Billion, an average of $210 per tax return paying this penalty.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is much more than the original estimate. John Koshinen, the IRS Commissioner, said in 2015 that the agency projected that roughly 7.5 million taxpayers paid a total of $1.5 billion in penalties in 2014.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not surprising that the Obamacare mandate numbers are worse than the administration first claimed. Obamacare penalizes taxpayers who can no longer afford insurance that Obamacare made unaffordable,&rdquo; said Sen. Tom Cotton (R., ;Ark.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 2014, the flat penalty was $95 for each uninsured adult or 1% of their ;household&rsquo;s adjusted gross income in excess of the threshold for mandatory tax filing, depending on which was higher. In 2016, the penalty rose to a flat fee of $695 or 2.5% of the AGI measure. This means 2016&rsquo;s penalties total will be much higher.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;If ;the final stats for 2016 reflect a similar increase after April due to filings past the initial deadline, that would mean Obamacare individual mandate payments on 6.8 million tax forms in 2016, averaging $489. Some share of those tax returns will include fines for more than one adult or a parent and child, just as Obamacare exchange applications often seek coverage for more than one individual. A conservative estimate of less than 1.2 penalties per return yields a rough estimate of 8 million people paying the fine this year,&rdquo; writes investor.com. ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;As Obamacare continues to unravel, things will only get worse,&rdquo; ;said Cotton. &ldquo;The legacy of Obamacare is skyrocketing premiums, unaffordable deductibles, the destruction of the individual insurance market, and tax penalties on Obamacare&rsquo;s victims.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In July, Sen. Cotton and five other senators introduced the Obamacare Tax Relief and Consumer Choice Act, which wouldn&rsquo;t permit individuals to pay the penalty if there was an increase in health insurance premiums on their state&rsquo;s exchange by 10% or more or if they could not afford deductibles under ObamaCare&rsquo;s current guidelines of affordability.  ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As premiums continue to rise, the healthcare.gov options are becoming less affordable, forcing people to turn down coverage.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;On average, the ;cheapest bronze coverage ;this year ;costs $930, or nearly 4% of income, ;for ;28-year-olds earning $24,000 a year, just over 200% of the poverty level. For someone of modest means, that&#8217;s a lot to spend for a plan that won&#8217;t cover much before the deductible is met. Many of the cheapest bronze plans will carry the ;maximum Obamacare deductible of $7,150 in 2017,&rdquo; writes investor.com. &ldquo;That&#8217;s why many people may end up turning down coverage that&#8217;s not much more than next year&#8217;s mandate penalty of at least $695 per adult in 2017, up from a minimum of $325 this year.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Add the findings in this study to the long list of Obamacare disappointments.</p>
<p> ;</p>
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<hr width="60%" /><strong><br /> To Hell with Obamacare!</p>
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