The Department of Health and Human Services has delayed Obamacare’s individual mandate by a month, creating yet another new “hardship exemption” that pushes the deadline for Americans to purchase health insurance coverage back to May 1 from March 31:
People who obtained health plans off the marketplaces after March 31 will not automatically face a penalty under the individual mandate, the Obama administration said Friday.
In a bulletin, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created a temporary hardship exemption for people who purchased coverage that was effective on Thursday of this week or beforehand.
The move essentially nullifies the month of April for the purposes of enforcing the mandate.
[…]
The CMS reasoned Friday that people seeking health plans outside the exchanges are “similarly situated” to people inside the system and might have been confused by the shifting deadlines.
This is the second time the administration has delayed the effective day of the individual mandate, the most controversial, most unpopular provision of Obamacare. The first delay was moving the deadline to avoid the individual mandate tax from February 15 to March 31, which brought it in line with the end of the open enrollment period.