Is Today is the Last Day to Purchase Health Insurance? Yes…and No.

March 31, 2014

by Amy Payne
Editor at Large, The Foundry

Today is kinda-sorta the deadline to sign up for Obamacare, though if you want to say you’re “in line” for coverage, the administration is okay with that. (If your state is running its own Obamacare exchange, it may be keeping its deadline firm, so check with your state.)

When we wrote about the Obamacare deadline and penalty recently, a reader brought up a great question: Can you still buy health insurance after March 31?

She asked, “If I chose to go uninsured, but end up with a massive medical issue,” could she “just buy insurance and be covered, you know, since they must cover pre-existing conditions”?

The answer is yes. If you don’t have Obamacare-compliant health insurance by today, you could pay the penalty for this year–depending on the amount of flexibility the administration decides to offer in its latest delay–or you could still purchase a policy anytime in the individual market outside the Obamacare exchanges. The amount of time you go without coverage determines your penalty–or as the IRS calls it, your “shared responsibility payment.”

Continue reading on The Foundry Blog at Heritage.com.