Posted on 03/24/2023 8:10:52 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has introduced a bill that would make tax-free Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) available to all Americans.
Currently, most Americans cannot use HSAs due to the stringent rules that govern their use: only those who pay an abnormally high insurance deductible can take advantage of the pre-tax program. In practice, this means that 90 percent of Americans are not eligible for HSAs.
Roy’s bill, dubbed the Healthcare Freedom Act, would change the rules to make all Americans eligible for HSA accounts.
To do this, the bill would de-link eligibility for an HSA, renamed a “Health Freedom Account” by the legislation, from health insurance requirements.
Many patients who pay high-deductible policies—which have grown more popular among employers over the past two decades—never meet their annual deductible, meaning any money they paid on the policy was effectively wasted. Because of the increased prevalence of high-deductible health insurance policies, many Americans have had to rely on savings to cover their day-to-day medical expenses.
Additionally, the bill would increase the maximum annual contribution to HSAs from $3,650 to $12,000, or to $24,000 for a joint contribution.
In effect, this would allow American families to pay less in taxes annually and direct more money to HSAs.
The bill would also expand permitted expenses under an HSA, allowing contributors to make tax-free withdrawals to pay for health insurance and associated costs, direct primary care arrangements, prescription and over-the-counter medications, and others.
Roy told The Epoch Times in a statement on the legislation that his bill would be a win for patient choice.
“Patients and their doctors should be driving our health care system—not politicians, and not government or corporate bureaucrats,” Roy said.
He added that collusion between government and health care insurers against HSAs had led to increased medical costs for Americans.
“The American people are absolutely fed up with Big Health care, government bureaucrats, and Congress destroying affordable access to the greatest medical care in the world,” Roy said. “It’s time to cut through the knot of government-corporate collusion and put power back in the hands of those who actually provide it and those who actually receive it.”
Roy concluded, “I refuse to sit back and watch our government completely decimate health care freedom, and the Healthcare Freedom Act is a crucial step forward to saving it.”
The legislation, which Roy also introduced during the 117th Congress, has won the praise of Americans for Prosperity, a free market non-profit.
“Tax-free Health Savings Accounts save people money and give them more control over their health care by putting them in charge of their health care dollars,” said Dean Clancy, senior health policy fellow at Americans for Prosperity. “The fact that 90 percent of Americans can’t have an HSA is a major injustice that must be addressed if we truly want to reduce health care costs and make the health system more responsive to patients. Expanding access to HSAs is key to creating more personalized options in health care, and we applaud Rep. Roy for including this solution in his Healthcare Freedom Act.”
Remember all Rats voted for that ACA disaster. The GOP was totally against it.
My employer sponsored insurance has like a 7200 family deductible which isn’t that high and they pay 100% or only a copay of a lot of stuff before deductible-I don’t know how they put this together but I also max our hsa I think we are doing about 8000 a year
Anyway the insurance only costs about 250 a month pretax to me for our whole family so it’s a pretty damned good deal
Or they can just can just change FSAs back to 5k a year, like they were before that piece of crap çut them in half for no good reason. It didnt make a scratch on à scratch to the federal budget but has cost me thousands in taxes.
HSA’s are tax deductible, grow tax free, and withdraw tax free. that’s the main benefit long term.
>>who is making these contributions ? the individual ?
I’ve have/had a “high deductible Health care plan” through my employer for some years until I departed that company for semi-retirement.
Part of that was the HSA. You take money out of your salary, pre-tax, right into the HSA. You get a debit card that you can use against that sum.
You can pay for drugs, doctor visits, what have you, just like an FSA. The difference is, it’s your money. Unlike an FSA(had one of those before the HSA) in which they confiscate any unspent balance.
I was released from my job on 12/31/21 and burned through the remaining balance on the FSA a few weeks ago.
I never once hit the deductible on my shitty health care plan($7k), but it was only $50/week, so it was just a catastrophic plan. All of my health care spending went on the HSA which I maxxed out.
Sorry...meant to say remaining balance on the HSA, not FSA.
It would have stayed in there forever unless I spent it.
IMO the main difference is with FSA you lose the $ you put in if you don’t spend it all that year vs. with the HSA the $ stays in & you can spend it in future years. Since it can be impossible to know what your medical expenses will be next year when you are making the decision in the fall of the previous year, I always estimate low so as not to lose any $ but I also miss out on tax savings if I don’t estimate high enough.
Most of the jobs I held from 1957 to 1980 didn’t even offer ANY HEALTH BENEFITS.
After 1980—when I became self-employed-—I paid my own health care premiums.
Have had Medicare for 20 years-—NEVER used a penny of it.
without details, this seems like a plan that sounds good but really accomplishes what ?
NO, it will not fix the problem 100%. You have a better plan that does so?
how does expanding a government program create freedom from government - self-reliant or not ?
Will not fix the problem ? what is the problem ? Do you know ?
I never said I had a better plan...that question is usually made by people who don't have answers.
all i wondered about was details and wondered what this plan accomplishes...and notice i use weasel words like “usually and “seems”.
FreeRegards
make taxes on income illegal and get rid of ALL of the crap ...
If his current bill is the same as what he introduced in 2019, here it us:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/3594/text
it's about amending\removing IRS regulations - so you'd have to click on the corresponding links for further details.
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:26%20section:223%20edition:prelim)
A quick glance at what is being removed\modified says the RATs should love this.
Bookmarked.
This is one that needs to be passed.
More later, after I call him.
Anybody in FR in his district?
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