Several thousand could lose insurance subsidies
The CEO of the state’s health insurance exchange, Access Health CT, said Thursday that 2,200 customers risk losing their income-based subsidies because they haven’t filed their 2014 federal tax returns.
Bills will be in the mail in the coming weeks, and those customers will receive higher invoices as a result, James Wadleigh told reporters on a conference call. Combined, the group of customers receives $1.1 million in subsidies each month, he said.
Access Health scrambled to get the information out, after receiving notification from the IRS on Wednesday.
The exchange is sending a postcard to its customers in the coming days and will also conduct robocalls, warning them to check their federal tax status and make sure their income information is correct in their insurance applications.
Access Health has to be careful about what it says to customers. Wadleigh said the federal Affordable Care Act, which created the state exchanges, doesn’t allow them to store federal tax information about customers, inform customers about their tax status or answer tax questions.
He said he has asked Connecticut’s Congressional delegation to get involved.
Unfiled taxes may have been a problem a year ago during open enrollment, but Wadleigh said the exchange had no clear way of knowing. This is the first time the IRS has sent such information to the exchange, he said.
“This is the first time this part of the system has been turned on, so next year we should be able to know,” he said.
Open enrollment began Nov. 1 and will end Jan. 31
Wadleigh did not provide an enrollment update Thursday, saying the exchange would send numbers out next week. Access Health said at its Nov. 19 board meeting that it had enrolled more than 99,000 customers in commercial plans, including customers who had authorized the exchange to automatically renew them.
“What I can tell you is our numbers are pretty good,” he said. “Almost where we were at in open enrollment this time last year.”
Wadleigh said the tax problem is different from a problem the exchange disclosed in August — that 7,000 customers risked losing coverage unless they provided income, citizenship and other documentation.
Wadleigh said Thursday that the problem is ongoing.
“We continue to see 3 to 5 percent of our customer base roll off our system per month, and that is of concern,” he said.
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