Self-employed? That pre-ACA health insurance deduction is still there...

Self-employed and seeking health insurance? Call an accountant.

Everyone who's paying attention knows that shoppers on the ACA exchanges are eligible for premium subsidies if their income is under 400% of the Federal Poverty Level  (FPL) and the benchmark silver plan in their area would cost them more than 9.5% of their income (for young people in states with low premiums, subsidies may fade out somewhere under 300% FPL).

Equally important for those who qualify are additional subsidies to reduce deductibles and maximum yearly out-of-pocket costs. As I pointed out in a prior post, these subsidies have hard break points: they bump up at income levels of $17,235 and $22,980 and phase out at $28,775. Since self-employed "profit from business" is notably malleable, and since retirement contributions come off the Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) used to calculate subsidy eligibility, the low income self-employed are well advised to keep an eye on those break points.

There is in fact a third dip for the low-income self-employed -- and a longstanding major benefit for those with higher incomes. It's the self-employment health insurance deduction. If you're self-employed and buying insurance for yourself and/or your family on the individual market, you can deduct the full cost of the insurance from your MAGI. That is, if your self-employment income exceeds the cost of insurance after various other deductions:

WSJ hits ACA from the left

Good reporters at the Wall Street Journal continue to bust the ACA's chops.  The likes of Louise Radnofsky, Amy Schatz, Timothy Martin and now Leslie Scism, who's been covering insurance for at least 15 years (and is also a news editor), are not going to get their facts wrong. But it remains fair to wonder whether the Murdoch-era news editorial regime is shaping the stories' emphasis [UPDATE: I have spoken to someone at the Journal, whose word I trust, who assures me that editors area not imposing a political agenda on reporters. I regret speculating about motive without information.]

Today, Scism and Martin spotlight something that has in truth troubled me as I explore offerings on HealthCare.gov and ValuePenguin:  the prevalence of high deductibles, particularly in bronze plans:

As enrollment picks up on the HealthCare.gov website, many people with modest incomes are encountering a troubling element of the federal health law: deductibles so steep they may not be able to afford the portion of medical expenses that insurance doesn't cover.
The average individual deductible for what is called a bronze plan on the exchange—the lowest-priced coverage—is $5,081 a year, according to a new report on insurance offerings in 34 of the 36 states that rely on the federally run online marketplace.