ObamaCare’s Marriage Penalty
The Affordable Care Act or the ObamaCare is something that was really talked about by many because of many reasons. One of these reasons would be the penalties that are attached along with the Government-Run Healthcare Plan. This is especially true for the hidden marriage penalty in ObamaCare.
Hidden Marriage Penalty in ObamaCare
One of the penalties that ObamaCare carries would be the marriage tax penalty applied to married couples. In this penalty, the married couples have it more difficult and complicated to receive subsidies compared to unmarried couples. It is instigated in the law that couples who are living together, but are not yet married, could actually save about $10000 higher than the married ones.
How is this so? Here is a marriage penalty fact check to support this. ObamaCare necessitates couples who are married to merge their income, which will then forbid them from filing as separate individuals. On the other hand, an unmarried couple who are living together would be able to file as separate individuals since technically they are not bound together by any law. Thus, the married couples are at a disadvantage and many married couples find this quite unfair they even claim it as a part of some marriage penalty snopes.
Summing it all up, the ObamaCare requires that subsidies would be based on the income of the household. So, if you are earning less, you will be getting more financial aid from the government for the payment of your health insurance. In order for a subsidy to be received, married couples should be earning less than $62,040 per annum. With this calculation, if each of the couple will be earning $35,000 per annum, they will be making a total of $70,000. In this case, this married couple will not be qualified for the healthcare support. Conversely, unmarried partners who are living together and making $40,000 each (total of $80,000) will be able to qualify for the healthcare subsidies since technically speaking they are still separate individuals.
Some people like Robert Rector, a senior researcher at the Heritage Foundation, see this as something that is an inherent bias. He even remarked that this does not seem to be random, but actually a tax law that is carefully formulated on political grounds. He argued that couples who are not married tend to vote for the Democrat party while the married ones tend to vote for the Republicans.
Whatever, the case, this hidden marriage penalty in ObamaCare must be reviewed and amended for non-bias as well as equality. It must be emptied of all of the marriage penalty snopes that just make it more despicable. If couples are living together, married or not and considering that they both have no children, they will still be spending similar amounts since the only difference is that they are not bound together by any law. So, with this, the spending capability of married couples tends to be more limited than unmarried ones. Not really good, right? Does the ObamaCare promote discouragement of marriage?
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