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Posted on 12/04/2025 8:45:55 AM PST by Miami Rebel
Sen. Josh Hawley is pitching his colleagues — and President Donald Trump — on a new health care plan.
The Missouri Republican’s proposal comes as his party is grappling separately over what its strategy on health care should be as the Senate stares down a floor vote next week onHawley believes his new bill, which would allow all tax payers to deduct up to $25,000 per person in medical expenses, would help offer Republicans an agenda to coalesce behind while boosting the GOP’s affordability message heading into an election year. The bill also allows out of pocket spending on premiums to be deducted.
“I think we need to be very sensitive to the fact that health care is just out-of-control expensive and I think folks need to know that we care about that — we want to do something about it,” Hawley said in an interview.
Currently, only taxpayers who itemize can deduct certain unreimbursed medical expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of a person’s adjusted gross income. But Hawley said allowing families to deduct medical expenses in addition to the standard deduction “would make that available for lots of families.” “It could save people a lot of money,” he added.
Hawley said that he discussed the proposal shortly before Thanksgiving with Trump, who he described as being intrigued by the idea.
“I said, you know, ‘no taxes on tips, no taxes on health care’, and he goes ‘oh I like that,’” Hawley recounted.
But Hawley said he hasn’t yet discussed his proposal with Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who is leading efforts to develop a GOP health care plan, or Majority Leader John Thune. He suggested, however, that if Congress doesn’t come up with a plan to address the expiring enhanced Obamacare subsidies, his bill could be a fall-back option.
“This [proposal] while it wouldn’t replace all of the premium tax credits, it would get close if you structured it the right way,” Hawley said. “If we can’t reach any kind of agreement where it looks like nothing’s really going to move that will pass, I’ll make the pitch well why don’t we do this, why don’t we vote on this, so we can tell people ‘hey we’re going to help you immediately.’” soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies.
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Republicans can screw up a wet dream. Pathetic
And one more time.
The Subsidies on Obamacare ARE NOT EXPIRING. The original subsidies of 2019 have no expiration date, and they likely also have inflation indexing since 2019.
The only thing expiring is increased subsides (for Covid) the Democrats voted in and THEY PUT THE EXPIRATION DATE ON THEM.
The only subsidies expiring are those the Democrats arranged to expire.
What is health care? An fitness club membership? aspirin? jogging shorts?
I would suggest adding large tax benefits for doctors who go to a cash-only payment system / don’t use 3rd party payers.
ie) incentivize doctors to set cash rates and to deal with patients payments directly.
Anything and everything must be done to encourage doctors/providers and consumers to opt-out of Obamacare.
This sounds like it may work since the person who’s the patient gets the deduction instead of money going straight to hospitals or insurance companies.
It is possible that providers will figure people can use this deduction to save on taxes, so what better to do than jack up prices even more.
Those companies that offer HSAs already have close to 10k deductible.
The problem is the warped cost of medical care and the high deductible in nearly all plans.
“I think we need to be very sensitive to the fact that health care is just out-of-control expensive and I think folks need to know that we care about that — we want to do something about it,” Hawley said in an interview.
Currently, only taxpayers who itemize can deduct certain unreimbursed medical expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of a person’s adjusted gross income. But Hawley said allowing families to deduct medical expenses in addition to the standard deduction “would make that available for lots of families.” “It could save people a lot of money,” he added.
This would fit in with the market changing.
Why can't Republicans pass PERMANENT tax reform? Democrats' tax changes NEVER expire. We got up to 10% AGI floor for medical deduction, and now that isn't going anywhere. It should be 2% of AGI for medical.
Put not your faith in parties.
The problem is people who pay nothing for medical care can consume tens of thousands of medical care a year. Then people who pay 10-15k per year can consume tens of thousands of dollars in care per year. It’s fuzzy math.
Mr. President, change regulations, tax law, malpractice law, et al to allow practioners who want to leave their health systems to hang out their own shingles.
That would lower cost and improve care.
When you see a practitioner yoked to a health system, you may be the patient, but you are not the employer.
The standard deduction amounts have increased under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) between $1,150 and $2,300 from prior-year numbers.
Below are the 2025 amounts:
Married Filing Joint and Surviving Spouses
$31,500
Increase of $2,300 from the prior tax year
Single and Married Filing Separately
$15,750
Increase of $1,150 from the prior tax year
Heads of Household
$23,625
Increase of $1,725 from the prior tax year
This idea would be kinda/sorta O.K. (tax deductions for something are another way subsidizing a cost and subsidies usually do not make a market incentive to lower the cost, merely support it) if it was only available for medical expenses that patient pays the bill directly, not through insurance - that would incentivize more doctors to bill patients directly, cutting the insurers and their corrupt system out. Then medical providers could compete directly for patients on cost, instead of competing for deals with insurers, deals that do not have the same one-to-one benefit to the patients.
how about a way to promote medical sharing?
It is a variation of mutual insurance which was a great idea with it was local or regional. small companies were bought out by bigger companies. May we need to restart.
“Hawley said allowing families to deduct medical expenses in addition to the standard deduction”
“in addition”
A swing and a miss....
IF the legislation included premiums and deductibles, not just incurred expenses, that number just almost covers this year’s expenses without a claim and is absolutely inadequate considering that policy costs are expected to increase 16% just next year alone.
And I’m almost certain the legislation does absolutely nothing to address the bureaucracy that’s responsible for almost half or more of insurance costs.
I think a lot of people think that “deducting” $25k would mean that much in reduced taxes. That is not the case. You would be reducing your taxable income.
The people struggling with health bills are not likely to incur much Federal Tax to start with. At the highest bracket, a $25k deduction would result in a tax decrease of about $10k.
So, in the grand scheme of things, this is BS.
This only incentives the health care cartel to charge more.
If a person has to wait a year to file taxes then they are not getting help to their now household cash flow..
Increase supply and reduce costs!
The medical industry is not a charity, it is a business. And part of that business is the generating of tax revenue for Uncle Sugar. Where is the money going to come from to offset the cut in tax income? I see an increase in the taxes of pharmaceutical companies and doctors thus raising the price of the medicines and service to offset. And another piece of the puzzle that is commonly overlooked but is a major player in the mix is the ambulance attorneys and they will be ignored in the crunch.
This sounds just like Mondavi and his free baby sitting and bus fees manure. He hasn’t got any idea how to replace the tax revenue either except taxing thew rich who own the businesses. And the reaction to his efforts so far is businesses bailing from the state. Where are the pharmas and doctors going to go?
Are the conservatives any different than the liberals in an election year? Pandering seems to be in season. But all this is going to do is kick it down the road again with the addition of new fallout.
wy69
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