re: Health Savings Accounts (HSA) for ALL

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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.