Is Health Insurance Pre Tax? 
You 've touched on one of the inequities of our system , the essentially unequal tax treatment of individual versus group health insurance . Group health insurance plans are tax advantaged in two ways ; 1 -RRB- what the employer pays towards coverage is a deductible business expense , and 2 -RRB- the employee 's share of their insurance premium costs can be deducted from their paychecks on a pretax basis and reducing their net cost of buying health insurance . Neither of these tax advantages apply to individual health insurance coverage a person might purchase for themselves . Though , as of January 1 , 2014 , under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act , person 's purchasing individual health insurance through the government marketplaces may qualify for an advanced premium tax subsidy depending upon their income level . So , in simple terms , in the group health insurance world you may be able to pay for your portion of your health insurance on a pre-tax basis but in the individual health insurance world you are generally in a post-tax payment environment -LRB- I 'm not going to stray into how some small business owners structure their business expenses and taxes as it regards these matters -RRB- . 