If you don't have health insurance by January 1st, get ready for a thump in your wallet.

According to the website The New American, the penalty for not having an Obamacare approved health care plan will rise from 2.0% of taxable household income to 2.5, an increase from $325 per family adult in 2015 to $695. The maximum family penalty is $2,085.

This penalty is being used as an "incentive" to get reluctant Americans to buy into Obamacare, but apparently despite 7.8 million families paying nearly $1.5 billion, enrollment is less than half of what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected. When Obamacare was being debated and battled over prior to the Supreme Court's decision, the CBO said some 21 million people would be enrolled. The actual numbers are around 10-11 million.

Part of the problem stems from tens of thousands of families, and hundreds of thousands of individuals losing their previous coverage, because their plans (which they liked) were not "compliant" with the plan. These people have been shoved and forced into taking substandard, more expensive plans that have not provided the savings promised by the government.

In fact, according to financial expert Avik Roy of Forbes Magazine, Obamacare actually drove UP the  cost of individually-purchased healthcare by nearly 49% in 2014. Similar hikes are expected to come in 2016.

 

More From 870 AM KFLD