About 500 000 children would be left without insurance and the poorest Americans could be fined under President Obama’s new health care law because of a loophole that the administration and Congress failed to fix.

Lawmakers passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010 without taking care of a loophole that would make it impossible for low-income families to purchase health care for their themselves or their children. Under the health care law, anyone who fails to acquire insurance will be forced to pay a heavy tax penalty – including those who can’t afford their employer’s insurance plans.


To downplay the severity of the loophole, the administration is calling it a “glitch” and claiming that it was initially unable to address it because of the way Congress wrote the law. Now, two years after the law was voted on, the affordability loophole is posing a significant problem in wake of many of the provisions' 2014 implementation.

The Obama administration initially planned to offer financial assistance to families to buy private health insurance if they cannot afford their employers’ options – but Congress did not include text for the financial assistance program in the Affordable Care Act.

Under the law, anyone who remains uninsured will be forced to pay heavy fines – including those who can’t afford their employer’s insurance plans. And the IRS on Wednesday refused to exempt such individuals from the fines
[link to rt.com]