FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - The Obama administration is aggressively targeting young people to help boost health insurance enrollment.
The administration said Tuesday it would comb tax records to find 18-34-year-olds who paid a penalty for not buying health insurance and reach out to them through emails and ad buys. Insurance companies need healthy young people to balance the costs of caring for older, sicker adults, who signed up in droves for insurance under so-called Obamacare.
Federal health officials say 45 percent of taxpayers paying a penalty or claiming an exemption were under the age of 35 and one of the most successful messages to convince them to buy health insurance was the tax penalty.
The minimum penalty rises to $695 in 2016. That's more than double the corresponding figure of $325 for 2015.
