U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner
Press Release

Congressman Sensenbrenner Introduces the DEDUCT Act in the House of Representatives

"The costs of medical procedures and prescriptions can be a significant burden on individuals and families."

By - May 24th, 2017 03:01 pm

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) introduced the Deducting Expenses Derived from Use of Care and Treatment (DEDUCT) Act in the House of Representatives.

In the Tax Reform Act of 1986, Congress allowed Americans to deduct medical expenses from their tax returns if the costs exceeded a certain amount of their adjusted gross income. Current law states that no medical expense may be deducted until the costs reach 10 percent of an individual’s gross income.

The DEDUCT Act would eliminate this unnecessary tax threshold in order to help make medical expenses more affordable for Americans.

Congressman Sensenbrenner: “The costs of medical procedures and prescriptions can be a significant burden on individuals and families. As Congress continues to debate health care and tax reform, now is the ideal time to repeal the arbitrary medical tax deduction threshold for medical expenses and give a hand up to Americans struggling to pay for necessary medical expenditures.”

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.

Mentioned in This Press Release

5 thoughts on “Congressman Sensenbrenner Introduces the DEDUCT Act in the House of Representatives”

  1. Tim says:

    So instead of making healthcare affordable, the plan is to lower taxes? Got it. Fiddling while Washington burns.

  2. AG says:

    This will be a nice change for many in the middle class to help offset the costs of Healthcare. Though as Tim said, we need to address the actual cost of healthcare… Obamacare didn’t, the new AHCA legislation certainly doesn’t appear that it is going to either…

  3. JPKMKE says:

    Agree, the cost of service needs to be addressed fundamentally. Providers are making huge investments to capture share of a fixed customer base and sharing the same physicians and specialists. It is a value chain which will not work economically. More deductions only increase the reliance on the government to pay for an extremely inefficient private healthcare system.

  4. Tim says:

    Point of order AG, Obamacare DID and DOES address the actual cost of healthcare. Only expanding Medicare for everyone would drive down the cost of healthcare. At best, reforms like Obamacare can slow the rate of increases, which it did and does.

    Trump/Ryan (Don’t) Care would undo the small progress that had been made. Goodbye 5-7% increases, we’ll be back to 15-20% yearly increases in no time!

    http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obamacare-succeeding-20160621-snap-story.html

  5. JPKMKE says:

    Tim – I wish I could be as complimentary of Obamacare. The patent cliff on pharmaceuticals actually slowed the overall cost increase trend. The hospital and provider costs were actually trending in line with projections prior to Obamacare. Although you are correct in that Obama did take credit for it in a speech, I remember.

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