The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017:

• A. A regulation expanding Medicare eligibility.
• B. A provision increasing penalties for noncompliance with health insurance.
• C. A law that removed the ACA penalty for not having health insurance.
• D. A temporary tax relief for hospitals.

Answer: (C)

The key idea here is how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 interacted with the Affordable Care Act’s coverage requirement. The Act effectively eliminated the federal penalty for not having health insurance by setting the individual shared responsibility penalty to zero starting in 2019. This means there is no federal punishment for being uninsured, even though people are still allowed to purchase insurance and the ACA’s coverage rules remain in place.

It did not expand Medicare eligibility, so it doesn’t create more people who qualify for Medicare. It also didn’t introduce higher penalties for not complying with health insurance requirements; in fact, it removed the federal penalty. The option about temporary tax relief for hospitals isn’t the central change described by the Act. A helpful nuance is that a few states still maintain their own health insurance mandates with penalties, independent of federal law.