For personal financial planning, note that if you itemize you can deduct any medical expenses about 7.5% of your AGI.
Although I did not live in Massachusetts or even in New England, the corporation I used to work for was based in Massachusetts and my health insurance was through Blue Cross of Massachusetts. The company's premiums and my share of the premium went DOWN when Romneycare went into effect. I expect the same thing to happen nationwide next year.i will get shot for this. Obamacare is not bringing cost down
I just read the same article this afternoon.In other interesting developments regarding employer health costs:
Many unions are lobbying for changes to PPACA which would allow some of their members, who are covered by Union insurance plans or employer/union plans, to receive health insurance subsidies from the government. As the law is now written, the subsidies go only to lower-income individuals who don't have insurance provided by their employer. From this article:
I think many corporations may have made the same arguments about PPACA and competitiveness issues in the distant past.
Sounds like a potential build-up for when and if they decide to start taxing it...
Animorph said:The difference is that you had to qualify with no pre-existing conditions for your individual insurance. Employer plans take all employees, all ages and conditions.
I don't know if we can say that's the reason our health care costs are high. That's just the nature of illness: Most people aren't ill, some are quite ill and a few are extremely ill and require a lot of care.The problem with health care costs are 20% of population are consuming 80% of the resources, with 5% accounting for almost 50%.
In 2013 and following that goes to 10% of AGI. Note that long term insurance premiums are also included.I'll agree that it's bad public policy.
For personal financial planning, note that if you itemize you can deduct any medical expenses about 7.5% of your AGI. "Medical expenses" includes dental, vision, deductibles, copays, even mileage. When I was w**king, we never came close to the 7.5%. After I retired and we were buying high-risk individual insurance, we blew right through that number. I kept track of everything.
Thinking about a family of four with an $80k AGI and no employer subsidized health insurance, they can deduct all expenses over $6,000. They may come close to the $6,000 with dental, vision, etc. and end up deducting a good deal of their major medical premium.
I glanced at my W-2 and I do not have a DD listed.
Yes. Here's a good article with a list of tax expenditures for 2011 Econbrowser: Tax ExpendituresJust read that the tax free treatment of employer sponsored health benefits costs the govt 180 billion dollars/year or 80 percent more than the mortgage deduction.
MichaelB said:Yes. Here's a good article with a list of tax expenditures for 2011 Econbrowser: Tax Expenditures