Five years ago, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R) requested that Health Savings Account (HSA) plans be made available to state employees. This year, over 70 percent of Indiana’s 30,000 state workers have chosen it, saving the state $20 million and reducing total costs by 11 percent as a result.
The Senior Medicare Patrol: They save money for the government, but not for themselves:
The 4,700 senior citizen volunteers who serve as the government’s eyes and ears have been credited with saving taxpayers more than $100 million since 1997. The program relies on elderly people to apply a lifetime’s worth of common sense and skepticism.
So why can’t they have Health Savings Accounts?
While Congress has been debating health reform, employers have been creating new consumer-driven plans that lower costs and improve the quality of care. More than half of employers now offer consumer-driven options, including Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and by 2010, nearly 18 million people will be enrolled.
Federal legislation can stop progress in its tracks, however. The Senate proposal, for example, does not directly outlaw HSA-eligible plans; but it restricts HSA options in insidious ways that will delay, deny, defeat and ultimately kill them.
Two HSA industry-sponsored surveys indicate:
We have previously reported on the tremendous success of pilot programs in which the Medicaid homebound disabled are able to manage their own health care dollars (think: HSAs for the chronically ill). What about managed care? Here are the study’s principal findings: Mandatory Medicaid managed care enrollees are 24.9 percent more likely to wait more than 30 minutes to see a provider, 32 percent more likely to report a problem accessing a specialist, and 10 percent less likely to receive a flu shot. (HT to Jason Shafrin.)
The Ways & Means Committee document released last week would no longer allow Americans to pay for over-the-counter drug purchases using tax-free dollars from a health savings account (HSA), health reimbursement arrangement (HRA), flexible spending account (FSA), or Archer medical savings account (MSA).
Think of it as a RINO/MINO meld. (Republican-in-name-only mates with moderate-in-name-only and produces ugly offspring.) There is no federal "public plan." There will be state public plans. There is no (Daschle-type) national health board. There will be a "quality oversight" board. HSAs are allowed. As far as I can tell, no one will be prohibited from leaving the country to get health care.
All this is brought to you by former senators Daschle, Mitchell, Dole and Baker – who even now think their opinions are so insightful they should be codified.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Finance has proposed new changes to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) that could make them less attractive in the future. These options are only "proposed" so they are open for discussion. Here's what you need to know about what these provisions would do to HSAs.
The American Health Insurance Plan (AHIP) has produced a report on the income characteristics of Health Savings Account (HSA) holders. The study used information on one million account holders from the five largest HSA banks. Since it didn't have direct income information on these accounts, it used the average income in the census tracts where the account holders live, which is a pretty accurate gauge.
