Asking on my son's behalf.
He lives in a state which did not expand Medicaid. He is single with no dependents. He is working for a temp agency that offers him health insurance at about 9.5% of his wages. The temp agency has estimated his wages at about $13K for 2017, which disqualifies him for Medicaid.
Someone pointed out that he could make a traditional IRA contribution to reduce his AGI enough to where the work health insurance is not affordable, and he could qualify to get insurance through the exchange using this "hardship exemption". At his income level, he qualifies for a $250 per month APTC. There are 10 plans on his state ACA exchange that cost less than $250 so these plans would be free to him in terms of monthly premiums.
So let us suppose, for a moment, that he files for a hardship exemption, gets the APTC and a "free" bronze plan, and is merrily working at the temp agency for the first six months of 2017 making basically about what the temp agency estimated. What happens if...
A) He gets a "real job" with "real insurance", which would probably come with a higher AGI. Would this mean that he might have to retroactively pay for the free bronze plan he was getting, because his higher AGI would mean his temp agency insurance would have been affordable?
B) He decides to go back to school or something and doesn't earn any money for the second half of the year, thus ending below 100% of FPL and not qualifying for subsidies. Would he have to retroactively pay for the free bronze plan he was getting?