When this monster hiding as Omnicare was made law, my wife was the senior rn in a family practice group.
She attended a meeting discussing the impact of this monster on their patients and their office.
She and her office manager brought up this problem re the high deductible for their patients, their families members as patients, and the impact on office personnel having to explain the new high deductibles and copays to patients.
They were basically shut down by the liberal doctor in charge of the group and his manager.
She tried to explain this change to some of our younger family members, who abused their golden insurance plans with visits to derms/plastic surgeons and other specialists for costly care without any real positive impact on their health. Big $’s for cosmetic vanity care.
A few months later when some of our younger relatives found out that their gold plated insurance had high deductibles and paid nothing for their expensive care, they got wise re what to treat and what to ignore.
A few months into Obama Chaos in a mutual agreement with the group, my wife, her doctor and the other lady in the office closed their practice after 30+ years.
Some of our healthy younger relatives use walkin clinics for their minimal health care, pay cash and write off the expenses when they do their taxes for that year. They often get their immunizations from a pharmacy versus in an office.
Some went to concierge MDs. Some of those concierge guys/gals have double/tripled their monthly/yearly fees. Many do not see their patients on demand and require appts. With many hospitals going to in house MDs, Hospitalists, so their expensive concierge MDs are not allowed to treat their patients in many hospitals.
So the liberal doctor went out of business?
Practically impossible to have enough out of pocket medical expense to be able to deduct it. I live in Oregon and they allow 100% deductible on their state tax, Federal not so much. Remember before Ronald Reagan lowered taxes all that was deductible, as was all interest paid including credit cards. Rates went down but deductions disappeared. Clinton came along and retirement income became taxable including SS.