Something Obamacare wants to do away with.

[Baruch Menachem]

Last two years at big bank, I had HSA coverage. It was great. I saved a lot of money on the premiums (about 10%) and wound up with a nice balance at the end of the job.

With Cobra, it is an even better deal, 400 vs 600 for the alternative plans.

Obamacare wants to end it.

Reason being, it works great.

HSA Plans work

Overall, participants in our new plan ran up only $65 in cost for every $100 incurred by their associates under the old coverage. Are HSA participants denying themselves needed care in order to save money? The answer, as far as the state of Indiana and Mercer Consulting can find, is no. There is no evidence HSA members are more likely to defer needed care or common-sense preventive measures such as routine physicals or mammograms.

It turns out that, when someone is spending his own money alone for routine expenses, he is far more likely to ask the questions he would ask if purchasing any other good or service: "Is there a generic version of that drug?" "Didn't I take that same test just recently?" "Where can I get the colonoscopy at the best price?"

By contrast, the prevalent model of health plans in this country in effect signals individuals they can buy health care on someone else's credit card. A fast-food meal costs most Americans more out of pocket than a visit to the doctor. What seems free will always be overconsumed, compared to the choices a normal consumer would make. Hence our plan's immense savings.

The Indiana experience confirms what common sense already tells us: A system built on "cost-plus" reimbursement (i.e., the more a physician does, the more he or she gets paid) coupled with "free" to the purchaser consumption, is a machine perfectly designed to overconsume and overspend. It will never be controlled by top-down balloon-squeezing by insurance companies or the government. There will be no meaningful cost control until we are all cost controllers in our own right.

Americans can make sound, thrifty decisions about their own health. If national policy trusted and encouraged them to do so, our skyrocketing health-care costs would decelerate.

It looks like it really would drive costs down throughout the system. Which is why no version of Democare likes it. All three Democare plans restrict or abolish HSAs in and push more to an HMO style. And we all know who wonderful HMOs are.

 

[Gadawg73]

Doctors and insurance companies HATE health savings accounts.
As a result of them costs are going DOWN, self employed are empowered to notice the premium.
Blank check group health folks HATE HSAs.
The insurance and medical lobby are against it. Guess who lobbies the President?