No go on premium tax deduction

Cutting the price of health insurance was always central to President Donald Trump's health care policy, and one piece of that was to let ordinary people deduct the cost of premiums on their tax returns.

"Businesses are allowed to take these deductions, so why wouldn't Congress allow individuals the same exemptions," Trump said on his campaign website.

Set aside that one of the biggest tax breaks in the nation (worth about $300 billion in 2018, according to the Congressional Budget Office) is that those health benefits from employers are tax-free to employees. Our focus is strictly on the status of Trump's proposal.

It went nowhere.

There were two main opportunities: the Republican health care and tax cut bills in 2017. Deductibility of insurance premium failed to make it into either one.

"There has been no change," said private health policy consultant Robert Laszewski told us.

In our last update, Laszewski noted that tax credits had edged out deductibility as a way to make insurance more affordable. Tax credits would reach more people because anyone who qualified could take them, while deductions only help people who itemize on their tax returns, or only about 30 percent of tax filers.

At the end of the day, neither tax credits nor deductions made it through.

"There have been no changes to the tax treatment of insurance premiums," said Urban Institute senior fellow Howard Gleckman.

We rate this Promise Broken. That can change based on what happens during the remainder of Trump's first term.