Interaction of Refundable Health Care Premium Tax Credit and Deductible Medical Expenses

All,

TL;DR - is the premium tax credit taxable income for 2017 if you claim an itemized deduction for medical expenses including health insurance premiums on 2016 return?

I'm having trouble running down this issue and figured you all would be able to help. This year, my wife and I qualify for the refundable health care premium tax credit based on our income, health insurance premium, and the cost of the second lowest silver health care plan in our area. I anticipated that our income would be higher than it actually was, and as a result I did not use any advance premium subsidies (i.e. I paid the full cost of the premiums out of pocket).

So, at present, on our return we are claiming an itemized deduction for medical expenses (wife had a baby and between that and high premiums, it is over 10% of AGI; in total our itemized deductions are greater than the standard deduction by several thousand). However, we are also getting a fairly sizeable (2k) refundable premium tax credit.

In my mind, the premium tax credit should be taxable income for us in 2017 since we are claiming a deduction for premiums paid in 2016 (basically the same logic as state income tax refunds). However, I'm struggling to find guidance on this issue specifically. Thoughts/Advice? Thanks!