Health care premiums.

[davecoonfare]

I received a 1095A but only for one month under the Health ins. marketplace. The remainder of the year I paid premiums to a provider outside the marketplace. I have a 1095B showing the months covered. Can I deduct these premium expenses?

[JohnC11 · Accepted solution]

That depends.

If the premium was deducted out of your paycheck, they're generally pre-tax dollars and cannot be deducted, that would be double dipping.  Likewise with HSA and MSA accounts, those are pre-tax accounts as well.

• You can only deduct the premiums out of your paycheck if your employer included them in Box 1 (Gross Wages) of your W-2. However, this is highly unusual and contrary to the standard practice.

If you paid the premium directly to the health insurance carrier yourself "out of pocket", the answer is yes.

If this helped you, please up-vote this answer so I know you were taken care of 100%. If we need to work together further to get it resolved, please comment...we'll get it taken care of together.

I'm here to help.

[gskillman]

The interview mode of TurboTax 2020 doesn't make this clear and implies that premiums are not deductible by omission. My case that I'm referring to is a retired individual that pays his own health insurance premiums directly to the health insurance company. I'm retired, not self-employed, not under Medicare, nor am I using a pretax method here, just paying  out of pocket (which, yes, is horribly expensive).