Health Care Reform

Are you prepared for the changes in the health insurance system that will affect you and your family? One of the most prominent changes is with the children. All children are now able to remain on their parent’s affordable health insurance policy until they reach the age of twenty-six years.

Currently, children are removed from their parent’s health insurance policy when they reach the age of nineteen years.  However, those children, who graduate high school and enroll full time in a college or university, can remain on their parent’s health insurance policy.  Of course, this only applies until the children reach graduation or twenty-one years of age.

The way the new health insurance policy is written it does not discriminate against any child for any reason. What happens to those children who declare emancipation, move out of state, become wards of the state, or marry before the age of twenty-six? What happens with the health insurance to those children who do marry and begin a family of their own, all before becoming twenty-six years old?

Are parents going to be mandated to continue carrying their child on their health insurance policy regardless of the circumstances? Another interesting factor of the new health care reform is the pay or play mandate. This portion is attributed to all employers, whether small businesses or large corporations.

This is a mandated guarantee for all employers to provide basic low cost health insurance coverage to all employees. Those small businesses and large corporations who attempt to skirt the new laws will be assessed a penalty per employee. Your annual W-2 will have a new look as well. It will include a new entry, which will include the monetary value of your employer sponsored health insurance policy.

This will not cost you anything for the time being, but within a few years, you will be expected to add the cost of your employer health insurance policy to your gross income when you file your Federal Form 1040. Yes, what this means is that you will eventually be expected to pay the tax for the affordable health insurance policy your employer is extending to you.

If you are one of many who are mandated to have a portion of your salary deducted for health care payments you may be scratching your head. Will the Internal Revenue Service allow you, the employee, to deduct the amount that was confiscated from your salary during the year towards your employer sponsored health insurance policy?