Most pundits have said the loss of the individual mandate to buy insurance would essentially kill the Affordable Care Act and they aren’t far off from the truth. If this does happen some of the more popular provisions of the bill cannot function and would also have to be removed. Consequently, insurance companies could deny you coverage based on preexisting conditions and they could drop you if you get sick. Not ideal. What’s the answer? Require homeowners to get health insurance. I know it sounds simple and just as bad tasting as the universal mandate. Keep in mind, I’m not a big fan of the mandate, but I do believe the benefits outweigh the negatives. That being said, the individual mandate’s chances in court are slim. There needs to be a backup plan. Here is how requiring homeowners to buy insurance would provide the same amount of coverage and incentive as the universal mandate while holding up better in SCOTUS.

In order to see how homeowner health insurance can fix this we first need to ask ourselves who would choose not to get insurance if they weren’t forced to by the universal mandate. Then we have to ask ourselves how closely do homeowners match up to that demographic.

Who is covered in the Affordable Care Act?

Medicaid eligibility will be increased to 133% of the poverty line. Subsidies are added to help individuals acquire insurance from the exchanges based on your income for up to 400% of the poverty line. As of 2009, the poverty line for individuals was $10,830 for the contiguous 48 states. As a consequence, if you are making up to $43,320 then you’re getting help.

There is also a “Shared Responsibility Payment” or mandate for business (over 50 employees) who don’t provide minimum coverage or better for employees who would have been subsidized by the government (up to 400% of poverty line). This is another push to make sure anyone under 400% of the poverty line is covered. The individual mandate would have focused on individuals making over 400% of the poverty line or $43,320 a year.

You can also get a waiver from having to pay the individual mandate fee if you can prove undue hardship, which equates to the cost of your insurance premium exceeding 8% of your income. This will exclude most low-income earners from the mandate problem automatically.

Who is your typical homeowner?

The important information here is not the broad racial and social demographics of homeownership, bur rather the simple figures how many people and how it relates to the Affordable Care Act. As of 2009 homeownership dropped to 67.4% of the US populace. Since homeowners tend to be in the upper income bracket we can gauge that a majority of this 67.4% will fall in this category. Based on a study by NYU 62.88% of the populace makes over $30,000 a year, which far exceeds our $43,320 income threshold for insurance subsidies.

Based on this requiring a “Shared Responsibility Payment” for homeowners would easily cover the gap from the loss of the individual mandate keeping the Affordable Care Act fighting for another day. Let’s just hope our legislatures know this. Share, Like, Tweet, and pass the word.

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