Skip paying December ACA Health Ins. Premium?

[markb]

There are a few articles out there about not paying your health insurance premium for December. The basic idea is that if you have an ACA plan that you pay for you can avoid paying the December health insurance premium. This is due to:

- 90 day grace period for people with tax credits, 30 day grace period without credits.
- You are still covered if payment is late as long as payment received within grace period.
- If you end up with no medical expenses or small expenses in December no need to pay for insurance, otherwise just send in premium after medical emergency and you are still covered.

Has anyone tried this? Here's an article example that's a little old. Not sure if things have changed.
http://www.investors.com/politics/andrew-malcolm/obamacare-rules-encourage-people-to-not-pay-premiums/

[Orvell]

I don't know about the feasibility or legality, but it seems like really bad taste regardless :/ A person who did this would essentially be scamming the system, presuming they could even get away with it.
"Avoiding paying" in this case means "shafting a business to save a few bucks."

[ShoulderThingThatGoesUp]

I don't need to shirk my bills to have a good savings rate, and chances are you don't either.

[Proud Foot]

It sounds like it is feasible and possibly legal

Under ObamaCare's 90-day grace period, insurers must pay all claims for an enrollee for the first month after a payment due date is missed. For policyholders who aren't close to meeting their deductible, there is not risk in not paying their December bill and waiting to see if they have a costly medical emergency during the month.

This seems to say that the insurers are required to pay claims in the first month after missing a payment. The question I don't see is what the insurance company can do in the event they pay claims in that month and the enrollee never makes up the premium. It is probably too late for the 2016 rates but I could see premiums going up in 2017 if there are a lot of enrollees skipping their December payment.

This all obviously still leaves out the question of whether it is moral or not, and that's not something I want to get into.