Medical Expense Deduction – Abortion Exclusion Proposals
Current understanding
Proposals to narrow the IRC §213 itemized deduction for qualified medical and dental expenses by carving out abortion-related costs. Under current law, abortion expenses generally qualify as deductible medical expenses (subject to the AGI threshold); the Abortion Is Not Health Care Act of 2025 (HR73) would statutorily exclude them. Taxpayers who itemize and incur abortion expenses would pay more; all other filers would see no direct change. Status: introduced, referred to House Ways and Means.
Evidence log
- 2026-07-16 — A bill to amend title XXVII of the Public Health Service Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require group health plans and health insurance issuers offering group or individual health insurance coverage that provide benefits for sex-rejecting procedures to provide benefits for items and services to address the harms caused by sex-rejecting procedures and to restore healthy human form and functioning, to the greatest extent possible.: cross-connection with irc-health-plan-restorative-care-mandate: Both use IRC amendments to shape which medical procedures receive federal tax-favored treatment or coverage parity. (novelty: 3)
- 2025-01-03 — Abortion Is Not Health Care Act of 2025: cross-connection with contraception-access-tax-provisions: Both proposals modify tax-code treatment of reproductive-health expenses — HR73 narrows §213 deductibility for abortion, while contraception-access provisions (HR8083) expand tax-favored treatment for contraception. (novelty: 2)