If the data mismatch is about citizenship or residency-or if it is about income and of greater value than 10 percent-these people receive official notices, requiring them to provide new information or show that the original, submitted information is correct. In such cases, people may “attest” to the accuracy of the information they provided. Rather than hold up those applications, creating a huge backlog and potentially scaring away people seeking insurance, Section 1411 of the law allows applicants to complete the enrollment process even if the information they submit doesn’t match up properly. The Affordable Care Act anticipates situations like these and addresses them. Somebody who recently lost a job or got a new one, or went through a major life change like a divorce, or whose income simply varies a lot from year to year, could easily supply income information that was totally accurate but simultaneously at odds with the government's latest data. That was particularly true for income, since the data hub checked applications against (two-year-old) tax returns and (one-year-old) payroll stubs. And mostly that's what happened during open enrollment, at least once all of the consumer websites were working. But because the process is so complicated-and because people’s life circumstances sometimes change-the information that people supplied didn’t always match up with federal records. The idea is to verify applicant information, in real-time. At that point, the federal enrollment hub-that is, the back-end system that works in conjunction with and the state online marketplaces-matches application information with federal databases from multiple agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security. By the time you are done, you have provided up to 21 different pieces of information if you're from a family of four.
SMARTSVN INCONSISTENT NEW LINES WHY IT CARE PLUS
You have to provide a whole bunch of information-the usual vital stuff, like your name and age and Social Security number, plus information about your income, citizenship, and residency status. To some extent, these kinds of discrepancies are inevitable, given the complex standards for eligibility, the possibility of human error, and the need to prevent fraud.Ĭonsider how the enrollment process works. The government just hasn't been able to verify their status. The problems could very well relfect clunky program design, poor implementation, or some combination of the two. But the "vast majority" of people with these applications appear to be getting the proper amount of financial assistance, senior Administration officials tell The New Republic. The inconsistencies first came to light a few weeks ago, via a story by Amy Goldstein and Sandhya Somashekhar in the Washington Post. Those people could be getting too little money or, yes, they could be getting too much. In those cases where discrepancies indicate that people filed genuinely incorrect information-if people misstated their incomes, for example, or their citizenship status-then their subsidy amounts are probably wrong, too. The government needs that data in order to determine eligibility for the tax credits that help defray the cost of coverage. A new Affordable Care Act controversy may be on the way. It seems a substantial fraction of people who bought private insurance through an Obamacare marketplace submitted personal information that’s inconsistent with federal records.