Republicans lambaste ObamaCare tax glitch

Republicans are hitting the Obama administration for a new screwup that sent the wrong tax information to about 800,000 people.

Federal officials disclosed the tax glitch Friday, drawing a chorus of criticism from ObamaCare opponents.

“The Obama administration has built a healthcare law so complex, so confusing, and so costly that even they don’t know how to properly administer it,” Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) wrote in a statement Friday morning.

Officials said Friday that 800,000 people received a tax form that miscalculated the cost of subsidies by using the wrong benchmark plan information.

Andy Slavitt, the principal deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said Wednesday he couldn’t yet explain the error, adding that the administration remains focused on ensuring that “every Marketplace consumer understands how taxes and health care intersect.”

The new tax problems under the Affordable Care Act give Republicans more ammunition against the healthcare law, which they have long argued is fatally flawed.

Top Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.), have highlighted how tax season is becoming more complicated under ObamaCare.

“ObamaCare has consistently lived up to the warnings Republicans have raised: taxes, canceled plans, disruptions, higher costs, etc. Today’s double news dump is just another in a long line of ObamaCare consequences,” Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, wrote in a statement.

This year marks the first time that people must factor in their insurance subsidies when filing their taxes.

The bad tax information sent by the CMS could cause some people to get incorrect refunds, though officials said the vast majority of people affected hadn’t yet filed their taxes.

Several Republicans took to Twitter to condemn the administration’s latest ObamaCare screw-up.

The more we see of Obamacare, the more it goes wrong. http://t.co/V8MefsXD0u via @townhallcom

— Matt Salmon (@RepMattSalmon) February 20, 2015

Reports indicate that 800,000 people using http://t.co/ZvoqrjrnCv got bad tax info. Read more –> http://t.co/aChkRlrDwO #fail

— Blake Farenthold (@farenthold) February 20, 2015