Comment by PaulDavisThe1st
21 days ago
We had some ambiguity here about what "paying for your own health insurance" actually means, so I am not sure either of our points really stand. Or maybe they both do ...
On the one hand: health insurance premiums are entirely deductible if you have schedule C income that exceeds their value. This covers more or less all self-employed people, who are the largest group paying for their own insurance.
On the other hand: health insurance premiums are not deductible if you do not have schedule C income that exceeds their value (and/or are eligible for an employer subsidized insurance policy), which means there is still a sizable and significant group of people paying for their own insurance and not able to deduct it.
I am sure you know my own preferred answer: convert all health insurance premiums into taxes that fund a single payer system, so that there is no difference between self-employed "self payers" and non-self-employed "self payers".
Given that we're unlikely to see that before I'm pushing up daisies, I would agree that either any health insurance premium paid by the insured should be tax deductible or none of it should be, to level the playing field. I think I slightly prefer the none solution, but I'm not actively against the all version.
You’re on an unrelated tangent about self employed people and the thread is about people tied to their employer through health insurance. This thread is not about self employed people.
> We had some ambiguity here
It's clear you know what I meant.
Not to me. I did not consider the situation of employed people who still had to pay for their own insurance in my initial response.
And the reason employed people can't choose their own insurance is that they don't get tax deduction then, so they are left at the mercy of their company.
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