As Congress struggles to figure out what to do about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), sometimes called Obamacare, there's a new plan to eliminate at least one piece: the shared individual responsibility payment, sometimes called the individual mandate or the health care penalty. In that way, the penalty acted as the financial glue that held Obamacare together. Congress couldn't, however, think of a way to get rid of it outside of repealing Obamacare - until now. In January, President Trump signed an executive order giving federal agencies the authority and discretion to roll back certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). That's consistent with numbers from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO): last month, the CBO reported that repealing the individual mandate penalty would result in 15 million fewer Americans having health insurance next year.

Source: Forbes July 04, 2017 03:31 UTC