Obamacare Hardship Exemption Offered to Offset Hardship Caused byObamacareLily Dane Obamacare is on life support after being plagued with problems including (but not limited to) website issues, security issues, cancelled plans, higher rates, medication coverage confusion, the you can keep your doctor and you can keep your plan lies, negative poll results, unauthorized charges, and expensive (and ridiculous) ad campaigns. Last night four days before the December 23 enrollment deadline the administration announced that the millions of consumers whose individual insurance policies have been cancelled will be allowed to buy bare-bones catastrophic plans or avoid the healthcare coverage requirement altogether. Thats right people whose individual plans were cancelled due to non-compliance with ACA guidelines will now be exempt from the individual mandate for 2014. They wont have to pay a tax penalty (okay, lets call it what it really is an unconstitutional fine). A hardship exemption will be accepted for those who lost their existing coverage and think that the plans offered through the state and federal marketplaces are too expensive. Until now, the ACA has allowed people under age 30 to buy catastrophic plans, and offers hardship exemptions for people over 30 who can not afford coverage (if the cheapest ACA bronze policy available on the state exchange marketplaces costs more than 8 percent of their annual income, they may qualify for that exemption). The law also includes a generalized hardship exemption for those who are facing an unforeseen difficulty, such as homelessness or divorce: Cant we call Obamacare itself a human-caused event? The change to the exemption criteria raises a concern about fairness what about the people who didnt have insurance in the first place? Shouldnt they qualify for a hardship exemption too? And, what about Americans who were able to get through the exchanges to purchase coverage? Will they be allowed to drop that insurance and change to a catastrophic plan if they want or need less expensive coverage? At this point, can anyone keep track of the mass confusion this train wreck has inflicted, anyway? How is any of this going to be tracked and monitored, considering that the IRS cant handle its traditional duties, and the Obama administration cant even offer a working website for the ACA? As House majority leader Eric Cantor (R) of Virginia put it: Of course, insurers arent happy either, as Karen Ignani, head of the trade group Americas Health Insurance Plans expressed: What impact will this have on the future of the individual mandate? It is hard to say right now, but Ezra Klein speculated on the possibilities in his Wonkblog column: Offering a hardship exemption to offset the hardship caused by Obamacare is proof (as if we needed more) that the ACA is broken and can never be repaired. Lily Dane is a staff writer for The Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared. Her goal is to help people to Wake the Flock Up! 