Has anybody here bought an HSA-qualified healthplan? Or rejected one? Is this any kind of solution for people being un-insured? It certainly does nothing for those who cannot qualify healthwise for medical insurance, but it is very affordable and does serve to avoid financial catastrophe due to high healthcare costs.
I think to qualify for a HSA one needs to be able to only get high deductible health insurance (most likely individual versus group).
HSA are used for the high deductibe and the coinsurance payment (like 20% of the covered expenses past deductibles). Hopefully there would be a coinsurance cap per year on the policy, limiting your out-of-pocket expenses for the year.
One would have to have enough income to afford putting money away in an HSA. Of the millions who have no insurance, the overwhelming majority, in my opinion, are in that fix because they don't have enough income to buy insurance, much less put money aside for an HSA. I think HSA's are fine for a segment of the population that finds it fits their needs, and they can afford to set the money aside. As for myself, I am far more interested in a good, reasonably priced plan that covers my family, has reasonable co-pays, and will cover every illness that comes down the pike. The State of Texas, even though it's become more and more expensive, and less and less comprehensive, has a range of options for state employees. We use a PPO from the options. The rest of the people in Texas, and the country, should have access to similar options at a reasonable price. Sadly, that's not the case, here, or in the rest of the States. Oh, and before someone carries on about "those babied state employees!", here's a letter from the Sunday Austin American-Statesman, about state employees, which is on target: Support of state workers Re: Sept. 19 editorial, "State employees deserve a raise": As a former state employee in the private sector, I applaud the editorial advocating pay raises for state employees. During my service at the Texas attorney general's office, I witnessed the professionalism and dedication of individuals employed in positions ranging from maintenance staff to executive directors. The vast majority of these folks knows that public service is no road to riches. Instead, they are motivated to serve their fellow Texans. Their reward — three insignificant raises in 12 years, accelerating job elimination and outsourcing, and rising insurance premiums and copays. The net effect is state pay has dramatically decreased. In good economic times state employees are forgotten, in lean times they are the whipping-posts of many candidates for public office. MARTIN THOMPSON, JR http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/letters/09/26Letters_edit.html Keep D&D Civil!!
Mas, To qualify for a HSA, your high deductible insurance must meet federal guidelines (believe!!!) like: individual (family) deductible : $1000 ($2000) individual (family) stop-loss limit: $5000 ($10,000) I think most states sponser a high deductible insurance pool, where the un-insurable can buy their insurance. The insurance cost to the individual is high (and the state is likely to loss money money on the deal). The state sponsered health insurance should qualify for HSAs. The uninsurable and rich are the likely purchasers of high deductible helath insurance (including the state sponsered policies) and the likely participants in HSAs. Anyone who is self-employed (or otherwise not covered by a group insurance health plan) and has a very sick family member that they want to cover would have have trouble getting an individual health insurance policy (since they are guaranteed losers). The state sponsered plan may be their only option (besides paying 100% out-of-pocket). This thread should be in D&D, so I will make it so: This is a transfer-of-wealth scheme that Republicans hypocritically back that is targeted for the wealthy. <Insert class warefare comment here.>
I sell HSA healthplans. There are really 3 big qualifiers: 1. "High" Deductibles, 2. "Reasonable" co-insurance limits, and 3. No co-pay provisions (Doctor Visits or Rx). The no co-pay requirement is the real biggie. I probably sell 3-6 plans per month. Maybe one or two of that total has been a six-figure earner. Most of my clients are middle-income earners. I see we are getting the transfer-of-wealth paranoia. For example my clients were paying $660 for health insurance. Now they pay $280 and put $300 plus into an HSA. How is that a transfer of wealth? The only transfer is away from the insurance company. I had another client who dropped from $800/month to $260 and another who went from $1100 on Cobra to $340 with an HSA-eligible healthplan. The policy I usually sell a family has a $5100 One Deductible for the entire family. Once that deductible is satisfied, the family is on 100% coinsurance for the balance of the calendar year. Each year, that family can save up to $5100 into an HSA to offset expenses underneath the deductible. That families financial exposure is limited to their premium plus $5100 per year. In most cases that I anallyze their "exposure" on a traditional plan was higher than that. If they can break the co-pay habit, HSA healthplans are very appealing because most months people don't consume much healthcare. You have to have an HSA-eligible healthplan in order to open a Health Savings Account. For many people it is a better way to bifurcate your premium outlay: some to health insurance and some to the HSA itself. The "wealth" is retained.
If you can't get underwritten, nothing is going to help you, but the plans have reasonable protection limits built in. Seem my post above. Here's a good article: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba464/HSAs.pdf
Healthcare in America is an absolute disaster. People dying for curable disease because they cannot get decent treatment is a travesty of humanity.
Thanks Giddy for the info about the HSA plans. I'm really interested in the idea and would like to see more. Bill Clinton in his 1997 State of the Union brought up the idea of Universal Savings Accounts (USA Accounts) where people could put away money tax free for health care, education, housing or retirement, which struck me as sort of being like HSA's. Unfortunately that idea never got off the ground due to the impeachment and all. Singapore has a program like that called the Central Provident Fund (CPF) where employees and employers contribute into an individual account that works sort of like a 401K. Singaporeans can then use that money to cover health care or housing. I've felt that this would be a great idea for the US and wrote a few academic papers and tried to get funding for a research project to develop something like that for the state of MN for affordable home ownership. Not being in a health care field I didn't consider it much for health care but it seems to me that a tax free employer and employee contribution HSA could do a lot to alleviate the cost of health care here in the US.
One more thing (I remember that someone asked about this): HSA-eligible healthplans are available to groups as well as individuals. They work largely the same way; both the Employer and the Employee can contribute to the HSA-- you just have to be cognizant that you are not exceeding the federal guidelines for annual contribution limits, regardless of who gave what (ER or EE). HSA contributions are tax-deductible to the Employer as well. If you are a nominal consumer of healthcare and have the discipline to save money in an HSA-- go for it! The HSA healthplan that I prefer is being segregated from traditional healthplans for renewal rating purposes. These high-deductible, no co-pay plans will have very little claim activity, so rates should stay very stable. They will go up with inflation, but you should not see the rate jumps that you get with traditional healthplans. Think 10 years down the road with $30,000 (hypothetically $50,000 in and $20,000 out for healthcare expenses over those 10 years) in your HSA and annually your family faces a $5100 deductible for healthcare while still retaining the right to make a tax-deductible deposit of $5,100 (or whatever the then-current federal guideline allows). Tax deduction. Tax deferral. Tax-free withdrawal for qualified expenses (including dental-- even with no dental insurance).
