Less Than 3% Seen Paying U.S. Health Law Penalty: BGOV Barometer

The U.S. health-care overhaul’s penalty for not carrying health insurance, which the Supreme Court ruled is a tax, will fall on fewer than 3 percent of taxpayers, mostly in middle- and lower-income categories.

The BGOV Barometer shows that about 3.9 million people will pay a penalty in 2016 for not carrying health insurance under the Affordable Care Act’s so-called individual mandate, according to projections by the Congressional Budget Office. The total, equal to about 2.8 percent of the individual income tax returns Americans filed in 2010, includes 3 million families earning less than $120,000 a year.