By David Purtell

david.purtell@salisburypost.com

People who get handed a tax penalty for not having health insurance now have extra time to buy an insurance plan this year, the Obama administration announced last week.

Obamacare requires most everyone to have health insurance, and starting this year, people who went through 2014 without insurance face a fee on their tax returns.

For someone who didn’t know about the penalty and skipped this year’s enrollment period, they could end up facing another penalty next year. The open enrollment period for HealthCare.gov, which is what North Carolina residents use to get health insurance through Obamacare, ended Feb. 15.

But the Obama administration is trying to alleviate the potential problem by offering a special enrollment period for people facing this specific problem.

Beginning March 15 and lasting until April 30, people who had to pay a penalty on their tax return for not having insurance last year and failed to sign up during the 2015 open enrollment period, will be able to get insurance through the exchange.

The fee for not having coverage in 2014 is one percent of a household’s annual income or $95, whichever is higher. Next year, the fee for not having coverage in 2015 is 2 percent of a household’s annual income or $325.

Lee Dixon, project director for NC Get Covered, a coalition of organizations involved with healthcare in the state, said the special enrollment period is important because it gives people another opportunity to avoid having to pay the penalty next year.

People are just now realizing there is a penalty for not having insurance, he said.

People who want to enroll during the special period will have to attest that they received a penalty when filing their taxes and didn’t know about the penalty until after the Feb. 15 deadline.

During this past enrollment period, almost 560,000 North Carolinians renewed or chose health insurance through the federal exchange. And over 90 percent of those people qualified for subsidies to help pay the cost of premiums, according to federal statistics.

Healthcare is very expensive, Dixon said, and people without insurance tend to put off seeking healthcare if they don’t have the money.

That’s why access to affordable healthcare is so important, he said.

Visit www.ncgetcovered.org/penalty_SEP for more information.

Contact Reporter David Purtell at 704-797-4264.