This story was updated at 8:05 p.m.
The head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday that the Trump administration is considering ways to ease the burden of people who go uninsured this year and would face Obamacare’s penalty.
“We are thinking about that,” Seema Verma told reporters when asked about exemptions to the penalty that uninsured people must pay until 2019. “I can’t comment on the timeline but that is something that we are giving a lot of consideration to.”
Verma met with reporters at the Department of Health and Human Services headquarters Thursday for an hour-long interview to discuss a range of healthcare topics.
Though the fine for going uninsured was repealed as part of the Republican-backed tax law, it will not go into effect until 2019.
Under Obamacare, a person who is uninsured must pay 2.5 percent of their income or $695, whichever is higher.
But the obligation carries multiple exemptions that were set up by the Obama administration. These exemptions include the death of a family member, receiving a shut-off notice from a utility company, or filing for bankruptcy. People do not have to pay the fine if the least-expensive plan available would cost more than 8.05 percent of their incomes.
The Trump administration has some authority to issue other exemptions, but Verma did not discuss what the administration is considering.
