When my prior employer pulled out of the area I had to look for health insurance options once my COBRA coverage ran out. I got a ACA plan that qualified for a HSA, still not cheap but as long as I didnt need a lot of medical procedures I got to bank money into my HSA. It comes out of my pocket as i currently earn to much to take a deduction on taxes. The first year it was close to 8.5 K, the second year it dropped to just over $7K. Built into ACA is the requirement that 80% of the premiums have to be spent on health procedures instead of admin and profits. Well last year they didnt spend enough on health care so they had to write me check for about a months coverage. I would rather pay less but at least the system works. I have another 3 years of paying for it before I can switch over to medicare. I plan to stop working entirely so with a bit of tax planning I can probably get to the point where I can write some of the cost off.
American Care Act Bonus
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You are good with your money and I just bet you really like planning ahead on subjects of this nature..I love doing that too but I always get weak and spend on different things sometimes just to try them out..lol Medicare will be a whole new ball game for you..enjoyed reading about your tactics to spend less money and save as well as writing off a few things..good for you...clancey
tlc1976
Minister of Fire
It was only worth it for me the last 2 tax years because of all the medical work I had done at U of M.
I keep the info just in case and when I run Turbo Tax, I go through the itemization and then decide which is better. It highly likely when I stop working that for a couple of years my health insurance will be big deduction that makes itemization make sense. During my working career tax planning was pretty simple but once I start raiding the various retirement sources of income its gets far more complicated. Which "bucket" to raid when
I use turbotax too. The standard deduction is huge so I haven't been able to exceed it in many years which is when itemizing starts. Self employed folks have way more deductions to sum up.
Health savings accounts are fine for basic stuff and if you have one you can get a higher deductible insurance plan saving you money there. But they are absolutely no replacement for actual health insurance. Last year our daughter had heart issues which all told the total bill was just over $300000. If we didn't have health insurance we would be paying that debt for decades.
My mom was in skilled nursing care for 3 years. I did their taxes and they definitely didnt take the standard deduction at 140K a year.
She is fantastic. The surgery was almost exactly a year ago now.
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