Before reading the following post, I would strongly suggest you play the following in the background while you continue reading:
Im the taxman....
So, am a hundred grand in educational debt after medical school and residency. It's the nineties and managed care is giving patients nothing and paying me less nurses earn. Kids are making a killing in IT. I am barely breaking even working two jobs....nine to five at a family practice/urgent care....then from around sic to eleven or midnight in another practice....with the debt and double-digit interest....I am barely making it.
Don't get me wrong...I love medicine and did not get into it for the money....however, I never knew that with the shifting sands of healthcare, I would actually have a hard time making ends meet because of debt service.
I decide to work in an underserved area in a small town in TN. Two and a half years service and they would give me something like 50 K for loan repayment. Hospital would give me a practice guarantee which is like a loan but does not necessarily have to be repaid.
I get there and find out the hospital is going bankrupt....they should never have brought me in because patients were actually getting care in the nearest largest city...Nashville.
Someone takes over the hospital and honors my contract...but the doc I replaced was a retired family doc who did a lot of surgery which generated a lot of money for the hospital and for the doc. For historical reasons beyond the scope of my story, procedural medicine pays more than cognitive medicine.....spend an hour with a complicated elderly patient medicare after overhead...pays you 45 bucks......spend one half hour sticking a tube up your butt...I find a couple of polyps....I might make four to five hundred bucks for a half hours work.
Bottom line is that I really got screwed. If I left, I would owe even more money....I had been hustled.
When my contract was finished, I was in more debt than when I got there.
My accountant mistakenly considered my practice guarantee as income rather than a loan. So off went a huge check to uncle sam. Meanwhile, the hospital sent me a collection notice for the practice guarantee.
I was leveraged into personal bankruptcy.
I had also developed chronic fatigue syndrome....another long story.
Because of a change in the law, my med school loans were not dischargeable unless I could prove undue hardship.
So, now I am not only bankrupt but I am going up against uncle sam on two fronts...the first to prove that my illness was an undue hardship and that the practice guarantee was a loan and not income.
Uncle Sam did not want a precedent set. They sent a US attorney from Washington, DC, another one from Pitsburg, as well as the one from the US court in which the case was being heard.
Despite the fact that I the hospital had sent me paperwork proving they had given me a loan, the court held against me...the loan for which the hospital had won a judgment against me....according to the judge...was not a loan!
Despite all the evidence presented...the Judge ruled that I could make more money, even with chronic fatigue....(He did not show me where or offer me a job....he just ruled that I was able to make more money...whether I could or not was irrelevant.
The bankruptcy went through....but I still owed some of the federal medical school loans....years went by and the government finally forgave the loans....but in so doing, our friends at IRS came knocking....it never ends.....
a nice person at the IRS offer in compromise department let me off with a grand....rather than something like 15 grand.
I ask myself...why am I still a patriot lol
As for the taxes Pman....the Affordable Health Care Act is not so affordable afterall.....leave it to the government to screw you....when they tell you they are here to help you....lend a hand....they are....putting both of their hands in both of your pockets.
I think everyone's advice was on the money. He should be eligible for medicaid although their might be a catch 22....that he lives with you and your claiming him as your dependant.....the total family income is what counts....you and your wife....added to his zero income....yep...pretty crazy. He has to purchase insurance....in theory, that is....
You need to check with the state agency that handles medicaid and they will help you.
Also, these days you are very likely to actually get real, compassionate advice from the IRS....sounds crazy I know....the new deal is that their vitriol is saved for the wealthy individual or corporate tax cheat....not for the struggling average tax payer.
I was hoping someone might know the answer as it makes sense that if you don't have to pay for health insurance then the question is moot for him and as far as I can tell so far I wasn't required to pay for it. It just doesn't make sense that the question is an all or none kind of thing. I would prefer not to pay $600 more than I'm required to though. IF I can't figure it out 100% I'll just not claim him as a dependant and be done with it. 
