Federal Officials Send Bad Information To Some Who Got Health Insurance With Tax Credits

By Pat Loeb

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Federal health officials are asking some 800,000 people who got health insurance through the Affordable Care Act to wait to file their taxes. The reason: they received tax forms with incorrect information.

Deputy Medicare-Medicaid administrator Andy Slavitt says about 20 percent of the newly-insured got the faulty forms. He says they should be getting corrected information in the first week of March.

"The vast majority of people, 90, 95%, haven't filed yet," he says, "so if they simply wait to get their corrected form, they'll be able to file with the correct information."

Slavitt says for some 50,000 people who've already filed, they'll be hearing from the Treasury Department about how to succeed.

He says the root cause of the mistake is still be investigated.

Slavitt also announced a special enrollment period for those who did not get insurance yet and find out while they're preparing their taxes that they are going to owe a penalty. He says they can't get out of paying the penalty for last year, but, to avoid it next year, they can enroll until April 30th.