As the premiums for Obamacare keep climbing, the so-called affordability exemption from the Obamacare tax keeps expanding.  You are exempt from the Obamacare tax if your income is above the level that qualifies for an Obamacare welfare payment, yet below the level where Obamacare costs less than 8.16% of your household income.  Because of the large increases in Obamacare premiums, the upper limit of this range keeps rising, allowing more Americans to escape the Obamacare tax.

Millions of people have paid the Obamacare tax for failing to purchase the mandated insurance, notwithstanding the unconstitutionality of the law.  Obamacare is unconstitutional for many reasons, not least of which is that it is outside any power delegated by the people or the states to the federal government.  The fact that the courts have been unwilling to acknowledge this fact is evidence that the courts, led by the Dread Coward Roberts, are as corrupt as the rest of Washington.

Despite the courts' malfeasance, more and more citizens are escaping the tax.  For every $1,000 that the annual Obamacare premiums rise, the level of income below which the premiums exceed 8.16% of household income increases by $12,255 ($1,000 divided by .0816 equals $12,255).  For 2017, "on average, bronze plans will increase by about 21 percent.  In numbers, that's about $311 [per month] for a single 30-year-old nonsmoker compared to $258 in 2016."  That means that the upper income limit for the affordability exemption for a single 30-year-old nonsmoker will increase from approximately $38,000 to approximately $45,700.

The HHS poverty guidelines, on which eligibility for Obamacare welfare payments is based, increased approximately 1.3% for 2017.  Now, if the lower limit of the Obamacare tax exemption window, based on the poverty guidelines, increases by a small percentage each year, and if the upper limit, based on insurance premiums multiplied by 12.25 (1 divided by .0816), increases by a large percentage each year, it is apparent that the size of the window must get larger.  Moreover, since the smaller number increases by a small amount, and the larger number increases by a large amount, the difference between the two will increase rapidly.

For example, the 2016 poverty guideline for a single individual was $11,880; the 2017 guideline is $12,060, an increase of $180.  As shown above, the upper income limit for the affordability exemption for a single 30-year-old nonsmoker increased approximately $7,700.

As one might expect, any system devised by Congress will be complicated.  The above examples are only rough, simplified calculations, and individual cases must be specifically looked into.  However, the qualitative trend is clear.

Therefore, just because you did not qualify for the affordability exemption last year does not mean that you might not qualify for it this year.  Check it out.