As I understand it, a HSA is a health savings account; i.e., a place where you can stick X dollars or N% of your paycheck away tax-free to save against unexpected/unpredictable medical expenses.
They are darned handy, in certain situations.
However, they are not silver bullets.
Actually, they sort of are... insofar as they embody the idea that people who have silver are less likely to be killed by the monster under discussion.
HSAs are paired with high-deductible health plans. What you tout as a feature ("I only have to pay a maximum of $3,000 a year in medical expenses!") is a bug for most people ("I have health insurance, but I have to spend $3,000 out of pocket to cover the deductible before anything is covered.")
To them, the HSA is a much-chewed over bone they're being thrown: if you can scrape up some money every paycheck in addition to the premiums you're already paying, then you have some tax-free earnings you can throw down the gaping black hole of the massive deductible.
If.
The system that works for you is still broken in general.
Edit: I'll add that in cases where people encounter horrifically high expenses, a high deductible plan beats the alternative of a plan where everything is paid for up to a certain amount and then it's out of pocket... but the situation where these are the only two choices? It's an intolerable one.
If you have the income to sock away in an HSA and you're able to swallow $3,000 a year out of pocket then the one plan is clearly superior to the other, but for many other people it's a choice of "Do I want to make my bad situation worse now or risk making it catastrophically worse later?"
We can and should be offering more choices than that.
no subject
They are darned handy, in certain situations.
However, they are not silver bullets.
Actually, they sort of are... insofar as they embody the idea that people who have silver are less likely to be killed by the monster under discussion.
HSAs are paired with high-deductible health plans. What you tout as a feature ("I only have to pay a maximum of $3,000 a year in medical expenses!") is a bug for most people ("I have health insurance, but I have to spend $3,000 out of pocket to cover the deductible before anything is covered.")
To them, the HSA is a much-chewed over bone they're being thrown: if you can scrape up some money every paycheck in addition to the premiums you're already paying, then you have some tax-free earnings you can throw down the gaping black hole of the massive deductible.
If.
The system that works for you is still broken in general.
Edit: I'll add that in cases where people encounter horrifically high expenses, a high deductible plan beats the alternative of a plan where everything is paid for up to a certain amount and then it's out of pocket... but the situation where these are the only two choices? It's an intolerable one.
If you have the income to sock away in an HSA and you're able to swallow $3,000 a year out of pocket then the one plan is clearly superior to the other, but for many other people it's a choice of "Do I want to make my bad situation worse now or risk making it catastrophically worse later?"
We can and should be offering more choices than that.