{"id":5981,"date":"2015-12-16T06:26:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T14:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/obamacare-enrollment-extended-to-accommodate-last-minute-demand\/"},"modified":"2015-12-16T06:26:00","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T14:26:00","slug":"obamacare-enrollment-extended-to-accommodate-last-minute-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/obamacare-enrollment-extended-to-accommodate-last-minute-demand\/","title":{"rendered":"Obamacare Enrollment Extended To Accommodate Last-Minute Demand"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Kodjak<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

The deadline to buy health insurance under Obamacare has been extended for two days after high demand clogged the federal government’s exchange.<\/p>\n

The Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday night, just hours before the original deadline of midnight Dec. 15, that consumers would have 48 hours more to buy a health plan.<\/p>\n

Wait times to log in to HealthCare.gov<\/a> or to get help on the telephone were so long earlier this week that officials said anyone who left a message or email address would be contacted after Tuesday’s deadline and would still be able to get insurance that goes into effect on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

By Tuesday, more than a million people had left telephone messages, so Department of Health and Human Services decided to give people more time.<\/p>\n

Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees HealthCare.gov, said on Twitter that 185,000 people were simultaneously shopping for insurance late Monday.<\/p>\n

People may be motivated by higher penalties that kick in next year for not having insurance.<\/p>\n

In 2016, an individual who doesn’t buy insurance will owe at least $695<\/a> when filing taxes for that year. The fines increase based on income, and can go up to $2,085 for an individual.<\/p>\n

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source:: http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2015\/12\/16\/459959586\/obamacare-enrollment-extended-to-accommodate-last-minute-demand?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=healthcare<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The deadline to buy health insurance under Obamacare has been extended for two days after high demand clogged the federal government’s exchange.<\/p>\n

The Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday night, just hours before the original deadline of midnight Dec. 15, that consumers would have 48 hours more to buy a health plan.<\/p>\n

Wait times to log in to HealthCare.gov<\/a> or to get help on the telephone were so long earlier this week that officials said anyone who left a message or email address would be contacted after Tuesday’s deadline and would still be able to get insurance that goes into effect on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

By Tuesday, more than a million people had left telephone messages, so Department of Health and Human Services decided to give people more time.<\/p>\n

Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees HealthCare.gov, said on Twitter that 185,000 people were simultaneously shopping for insurance late Monday.<\/p>\n

People may be motivated by higher penalties that kick in next year for not having insurance.<\/p>\n

In 2016, an individual who doesn’t buy insurance will owe at least $695<\/a> when filing taxes for that year. The fines increase based on income, and can go up to $2,085 for an individual.<\/p>\n

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}