WASHINGTON — In May 2012, when the Internal Revenue Service proposed its rules for Americans to get government subsidies for health insurance, officials acknowledged that a legal quirk needed to be fixed: The Affordable Care Act was written in a way that inadvertently denied help to some people who live apart from spouses who abuse them, are in prison or are on the cusp of a divorce.
The law’s authors, in creating tax credits to help pay for health plans bought through the new insurance marketplaces, had overlooked the fact that some married people file their tax returns separately.
The IRS said in the preamble to those 2012 rules that it would correct the mistake, yet in the nearly two years since then, the Treasury Department has not made the change.
Battered spouses have become the leading edge of a small army of people — legally married but filing taxes on their own — stepping up pressure in an effort to get an equal chance at affordable health plans.
As the first open-enrollment period for the new federal and state insurance marketplaces approaches its March 31 deadline, the Treasury Department is preparing to take steps this week to allow married survivors of domestic abuse to claim subsidies for health plans, no matter how they file their taxes, according to a department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Others who are married but filing separately will not get relief for now.
A few other groups — primarily immigrants and families with twins — also have had problems enrolling
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In these cases, their life circumstances have not meshed with the software for , the online insurance marketplace used in three dozen states.
Federal officials say that these software problems have largely been fixed, while consumer advocates say that enrollment obstacles for these groups have only diminished.
“What’s hard for all of us to get our arms around is how many people still haven’t gotten through those work-arounds,” said Tricia Brooks, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.
The government, Brooks said, should let anyone who has tried to apply for insurance but has not yet succeeded finish the application after the enrollment deadline.
