Medical insurance gap coverage after residency- in the ACA era.

[MERICA]

Quick question:
I am graduating residency at the end of June. My next position, and accompanying health coverage, does not start until August. I am healthy and have no major health risks, other than moving across the country in that time frame. If I was not covered for that one month period, would I have to pay a penalty due to the new affordable care act rules? I remember seeing a tax document earlier this year, when preparing my taxes, that showed my health coverage for each month. When I filed my taxes, I was told that I saved 1,400 dollars by having health insurance.
My next question would be which would be more expensive of the two- a penalty for a one month of non coverage or a premium for one month of high deductible catastrophic coverage? Or better yet, should I try a social experiment and apply for ACA coverage for one month and get back to everyone with my experience?

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[Doctor4Life1769]

You won't.

 

[pjl]

You can retroactively buy coverage with cobra if you needed to have it, otherwise can skip, from a covering yourself in case of issue standpoint. I dont know about the ACA stuff.


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[aneftp]

The ACA was really about individual market health insurance (5% of population) (aka subsidizing people to get insurance if they couldn't afford the individual insurance rates and medicaid expansion.

Saying all that. Only you can decide whether you want to go bare for 30 days being healthy.

1. The government technically imposed a tax pro rated for each month you don't carry insurance. For ur tax is 1/12 of whatever the tax is. As we all
Know. It's like scouts honor with the tax returns. 99.8% chance u won't get audited since the govt doesn't have enough people to subsidize.

"You owe the fee for any month you, your spouse, or your tax dependents don’t have health insurance that qualifies as minimum essential "

https://www.healthcare.gov/fees/fee-for-not-being-covered/

2. The $1400 "tax savings reported". That's based on how much ur employer has subsidize ur health care. And if it were re added back to ur w2 income as a resident. U likely would have paid the $1400 in taxes. Aka. Ur healthcare subsdidy from ur residency employer was likely worth between $3500-4500 depending on ur tax bracket. Essentially govt is saying ur employer is really paying all that money and getting a tax deduction. And if they re add the taxes back to ur income. U would need to pay taxes on the subsides.