how hardship exemptions worked
the affordable care act was signed into law by president barack obama on march 23 2010 commonly referred to as obamacare it helped reduce the cost of health care for the american public by creating health care exchanges expanding the eligibility for medicaid preventing insurance companies from denying coverage and penalizing individuals who weren t covered starting in 2014 most individuals were required to have acceptable health care coverage which was known as minimum essential coverage those who weren t covered were charged a fee called an individual mandate or the shared responsibility payment this was a one time fee collected by the internal revenue service irs when individuals filed their annual tax returns those who couldn t afford health care were able to apply for hardship exemptions through the health insurance marketplace a hardship exemption may be granted for tax years between 2015 and 2018 for the following circumstances the trump administration eliminated the individual mandate in 2019 which means those without health insurance were longer penalized the administration expanded the conditions for approval for the hardship exemption making it easier to avoid the penalty up until 2018 if individuals as noted above the individual mandate was eliminated in 2019 which means individuals without health insurance are no longer penalized president biden s health care plan includes bringing back the individual mandate special considerationshardship exemptions typically covered the month prior to the month of and the month after the hardship the exemption period could be extended up to an entire calendar year in some cases for instance people who were ineligible for medicaid because their state has not expanded medicaid coverage individuals were often required to provide documentation to back up their application for an exemption 