re: Health Savings Accounts (HSA) for ALL

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There's absolutely no reason this should be a partisan issue, whatsoever. There is literally zero logical, fiscal, or even emotional argument against HSA's for All.

Not only should HSA's be universal, they should be mandatory.

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Bingo.

Also, health savings accounts need to be started the day you are born. A wealthy grandma and grandpa giving a newborn a few thousand dollars to stick in an HSA and letting it compound for 60 years would work wonders.

If you are poor, there needs to be a law that allows charities to donate to a newborn's HSA. People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett could be asked to donate and it would be the best $$$ they could spend besides finding a cure for cancer.

Investing money and compounding it over 60 years is the key.

And if you turn 65 and have a million $$$ stashed away in your HSA before you go on Medicare then great. Just like an IRA you can start spending the money or pass it on to your kids.

It gives people an incentive to stay healthy and stay in shape. Because you are going to want to stay away from the doctor/hospital and maximize the amount in your HSA when you turn 65.

Society benefits. It is a no brainer.

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I don’t think this has a chance of happening. If it did, I would probably stop 401k contributions entirely and solely use the HSA, employer contributions be damned.

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I agree, but I think it would be great to be able to make catch-up contributions at anytime (or at least within a few years) for any non-maxed HSA contributions from previous years.

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Dumb. My company gives 8%. You just gonna opt out of 8% to throw money into some ETFs?

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HSA is tax free going in and out. Did you run numbers to compare?

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I have to save two straight years without even touching it to have enough in my account to meet my deductible with the current contribution limits.

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That's just an awful way of looking at it. Which is why a lot of people get hung up on making the switch even though it's the right call.
You need to include the difference in premium between that plan and the PPO you have. And you also have to consider that your OOP max with PPO isn't 0 (hate to point the obvious, but people don't account for that when they say an hsa wouldn't make sense for them)

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You need to include the difference in premium between that plan and the PPO you have. And you also have to consider that your OOP max with PPO isn't 0 (hate to point the obvious, but people don't account for that when they say an hsa wouldn't make sense for them)

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Oh, I contribute to my HSA. I only have one option with with current employer and it's this high arse HDHC plan with a MOP of $13,500. Even though the plan is terrible, I still contribute. I just wish that I had the option of contributing more than the limits allow.

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For medical expenses. It’s not a haven for cars, boats and other retirement needs. Otherwise it’s taxed at the normal prevailing income rate

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Ok. But it is a good way to save for any number of retirement wants or needs. Best case scenario you use it for retroactive reimbursement and withdraw the money tax free.

Worst case scenario it acts like a 401k without the required minimum distribution issues.

From Investopedia:

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Remember, distributions for qualified medical expenses are not taxable, so you want to use the money exclusively for those expenses if possible. There are no required minimum distributions, so you can keep the money invested until you need it.

If you do need to use the distributions for another purpose, they will be taxable. However, after age 65, you won’t owe the 20% penalty. Using HSA assets for purposes other than qualified medical expenses is generally less detrimental to your finances once you’ve reached retirement age because you may be in a lower tax bracket if you’ve stopped working, reduced your hours, or changed jobs.

In this way, an HSA is effectively the same as a 401(k) or any other retirement account, with one key difference: There is no requirement to begin withdrawing the money at age 70½. So you don’t have to worry about saving too much in your HSA and not being able to use it all effectively. 

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MY company offers one but the deductible is $6k with a $1k contribution but the premiums are as high as the PPO plan offered with only a $3k deductible.


That scenario seems odd. I've never heard of an HSA plan with premiums as high as a traditional PPO - that's sort of the whole point with HSAs: Lower premium, higher deductible. There has to be some other information that we are missing. Or your benefits person is an idiot.

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I think a lot of insurance cost has been offloaded to employees the last few years in HSA plans. I am on my wife's HSA plan, she works for a sizable hospital group. They now only offer one HSA and one FSA plan, when she started it was a traditional plan with very low employee cost. 3 out of the last 5 years we have exceeded the total deductible of $6k, then 100% covered. The total premiums for emp + 1 last year was $6600+ and the thing that chafes me is this company has a lot of employees AND directly employs a lot of doctors, so it feels like the employees are subsidizing the plan to a large extent by staying in-network. Her employer kicks in $750 to the HSA for E + 1, and she gets to gross it up to $8100 this year due to age. Currently have a little less than 60k in the HSA but we don't use it to pay current medical bills. I know it is a lot better than buying coverage on the market, but it certainly isn't much of an employee perk, nor is her company 403b match.

HSA, due to being excluded from FICA taxes and tax deductible contributions, is def better than a Roth, but the contribution levels for E + 1 or family is a joke at current levels. Then again, a huge percentage of the work force can't afford to max out current contribution levels.