Re:Hospitals Block ‘Surprise Billing’ Measure
by cheald on Friday July 12, 2019 @04:14PM
(#20424072)
It does seems like an artifact that after-tax premiums aren't always deductible. We already have a model for how to do that in the homeowner's mortgage interest deduction: insurers (banks) report the total of your premiums (mortgage interest) to the IRS, you get to deduct that value from your AGI.
If you're paying for insurance with after-tax dollars, you can deduct it as long as you're a) itemizing, and b) have total medical + premium expenses >7.5% of AGI, but given that people who pay for insurance with pre-tax dollars get that benefit regardless of those criteria, it seems like it'd only be sane to relax the rules so that people paying with post-tax dollars get the same break.
Re:Hospitals Block ‘Surprise Billing’ Measure
by Ididntdothis on Friday July 12, 2019 @04:31PM
(#20424228)
For 2 the simple solution is to make the whole country the risk pool.
Re:Hospitals Block ‘Surprise Billing’ Measure
by baddox on Friday July 12, 2019 @05:00PM
(#20424442)
Not the simplest politically, of course, but yeah, that's one of the primary economic arguments for nationalized health care or at least nationalized health insurance.
Re:Hospitals Block ‘Surprise Billing’ Measure
by nicoburns on Friday July 12, 2019 @04:16PM
(#20424089)
Isn't 2 a great argument for nationalised healthcare insurance?
Re:Hospitals Block ‘Surprise Billing’ Measure
by baddox on Friday July 12, 2019 @05:02PM
(#20424468)
At the bare minimum it could be an argument for a public option, which was initially part of the Obamacare proposal until Lieberman threatened to cooperate with the GOP to block it.
For 1, it's just completely insane that all medical expenses aren't automatically tax-deductible. It's silly that it's advantageous to have my employer pay $200 a month for my insurance plan rather than just pay me an extra $200 and let me use that on whatever plan I want.
For 2, that may be a little trickier politically. Group insurance gets more efficient the larger the group, assuming there's a mechanism to prevent adverse selection. So obviously, we want to increase group size. That was one of the claimed justifications for the individual mandate.