For households with incomes over 400 percent of FPL—even just $1 over, according to the IRS—there is no cap on the percentage of their income they can be made to pay for their Obamacare-mandated health-insurance premiums.
“ACA will provide premium credit support scaled to individual and family income relative to poverty such that eligible families and individuals’ premium contributions will be limited from 2.0 percent to 9.5 percent of income,” explained the Congressional Research Service. “Individuals and families with income at or above 400 percent of poverty will be ineligible for premium credits.”
The regulation governing the “premium credit” or subsidy is also calculated on the assumption that the household will buy the second-lowest-cost “Silver” plan on the health-insurance exchange. There are “Gold” and “Platinum” plans above the “Silver” plan and “Bronze” plans below it. Under Obamacare, a household is free to buy a cheaper Bronze plan or a more expansive Gold or Platinum plan, but, as CRS explains it, “if the individual/family enrolls in a plan with a premium that exceeds the premium for the reference plan [the Silver plan], the individual/family is responsible for paying that additional amount.”
What does this mean in cold hard cash?