Confusion abounds over the penalty for not having health insurance

If you think the health insurance landscape is confusing now, just wait until next year at tax time.

That's went millions of taxpayers will face the task of establishing that they have insurance coverage or paying a penalty.

'We believe it's going to create massive confusion,' Mark Ciaramitaro, vice president of health care enrollment services for H&R Block, told the Wall Street Journal.

What many people don't realize is that they could end up paying more than the minimum of $95 for not having insurance.

According to the Journal's calculations, a single person with $30,000 adjusted gross income would pay $199. A married couple with two children and an adjusted gross income of $50,000 would pay $297 and the same couple earning $150,000 would pay $1,297.

Given that other provisions of the health reform law have been delayed (such as the ability to keep your old plan and the employer mandate), it's possible that the administration could end up waiving the individual-mandate penalty for 2014.

An Urban Institute survey found that knowledge of the individual mandate penalty is very low among those who will have to pay the penalty - in other words, those who lack health insurance.

Reporting begins in earnest next year. The IRS said it would provide instructions for calculating and noting the penalty as part of Form 1040 for 2014, the Journal reported.

Elizabeth Hayes covers health care for the Portland Business Journal.