I get lost in all the details, but as I understand it, unless you are exempt you have till March 30 to sign up, or you have to pay a fine next year when you file your income tax. And if you don't sign up by the 30th, you can't sign up until the next enrolment period which begins in November this year.You don't need to sign up if you have qualified health insurance already, and it's really murky (to me) what constitutes “qualified". Or if you have Medicare/Medicaid. And there are undoubtedly more exemptions.
Employers with a certain minimum number of employees are required to provide “qualified” insurance or they get penalized. Which is one of the major problems with the law (again, as I understand it), because many employers that are near that minimum will lay off a few to be below it. People lose their jobs as well as their “unqualified” health insurance.
And it seems that there is no end to how many peopleare getting screwed by either losing primary physician, being denied services at some medical institutions (including some that provide the best care), having insurance but still being penalized because their plan (which might be supplied by their company) isn’t “qualified”.
Affordable and universal health insurance is a worthy goal, and it would have been nice if Obama et.al. was capable of crafting legislation that provided that instead of using it to instigate a partisan political war.