That's certainly a legitimate point. I find it hard impossible to defend the bloated tax code, so I certainly won't try it here. If I had my way there would be no deductions, as I find them to be little more than social engineering.
For what it's worth, I wish the President would have proposed accounts that allow pre-tax contributions for healthcare similar to 401k retirement accounts. Allow this money to be converted into a retirement account and/or passed onto heirs.
The Democrats would never let that happen........unless we defeat them soundly.
I think such a plan (401k-type) would be a better idea, but it still smacks of government trying to dictate ways we should care for our own needs (that's not a "harsh criticism", since I realise that given where we are today, we are hardly going to have an appropriately limited government tomorrow).
I would like to see encouragement of true "health care insurance", meaning catastrophic care insurance with large (thousands of dollars) deductables, coupled with a 401-k type plan to provide the tax deductions for the money spent up to the deductable (again, assuming we have to have tax deductions at all).
Health "insurance" that is simply a pass-through for the costs of normal medical expenses distorts the markets.
However, I am also a fan of plans where you pay the doctors directly and they provide fixed-fee servise (like the Kaiser plan -- although my employee offers one and I don't use it, even though it costs 1/3rd of what I pay, and everybody in it loves it).