long term care insurance?

(3) Is not correct, at least as worded. You must add up your total medical expenses for the year and reduce that by the total amount you have been reimbursed for medical expenses before using the Schedule A deduction. "Reimbursment" includes insurance payouts, Medicare, or simply payments from other people. (This last part enables a sort of gift tax beyond usual levels, but that's a tangential point.)

There's also a limit on how much you can deduct for LTCI premiums and it's fairly low. (It depends on age.)

This is all discussed in (at least) Publication 17.

Also, (1) is potentially misleading because a low-earning self employed person will not be able to deduct all of their insurance premiums if their earning (after retirement plan adjustments) are lower than the premium amount.

Steve

The premiums (up to a published maximum that varies by age) are allowed as medical deductions listed on Schedule A Line 1.

Self employed taxpayers may, under certian conditions, take their medical premiums and Long Term Care premiums as an above-the-line adjustmnent to income on page 1 of form 1040. They may instead take these deductions on schedule A like anyone else.

If used for LTC

If a nursing home bills $350/day and the LTC policy pays 280/day, the $70/day you actually paid out of pocket is eligible to be listed on schedule A Line 1.

I specifically asked him that and he said the reimbursement was irrelevant; you could deduct the full expense. This makes much more sense; thanks.