Consumer driven health care plans like those already in place, and high deductible plans designed to save money on insurance costs often have a health savings account feature designed to lessen the blow of health care costs to the consumer when medical needs arise. These have certain advantages in addition to cost savings such as tax deferability, more control for the consumer, and the ability for the consumer to obtain health insurance quotes best available products.
HEALTH INSURANCE QUOTES FOR YOUR FAMILY
An important question about these consumer driven health care plans is how they are dealt with in the new health care bill. Will they exist under the new plan? If they remain in place, what will the rules be?
Currently, there are rules set by the IRS regarding health care savings accounts. Most notably, there is a limit on how much you can put in the account. These limits will either match the amount of your deductible, or an amount specified by the IRS. For individuals this is limited to $2,900 and a family is limited to $5,800. Under certain circumstances involving those over 55, the limits may be increased however.
Existing policy on HSA deposits states that they remain the property of the policyholder, and those deposits, which are not used during one policy year, may be carried over to the next. When policyholders terminate their policy, they are no longer allowed to make deposits in to the HSA but the funds that are in the plan remain there until they need to be used.
WHAT IS A HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNT?
None of the versions of the new health care bill address HSAs, and they may be phased out depending on what the final health care bill looks like. Current proposals for the new plan place some heavy requirements on insurers to offer better and more benefits, which will make it harder for them to offer low cost plans with fewer benefits. For example, a plan that currently pays 60 percent of benefits may be required to pay 65 percent under a new health care bill. It also may mean that certain types of procedures and/or medications not currently covered under these health care plans would have to be under a new bill. Impositions such as these will force insurance companies to increase their rates affecting health insurance quotes, which is the exact opposite of what the plans were designed to do.
Some lawmakers have proposed that high deductible plans like those with health savings accounts may remain in place, as long as they are offered with more benefits than current plans. This is akin to what has happened in Massachusetts, which has recently undergone a health care reform plan of their own. In that state, health care programs that contain health care savings accounts have a minimum benefits requirement. Early reports are that the number of these plans as well as requests for health insurance quotes has increased.
The consensus is that HSAs will continue to be available under the new health care rules proposed by congress. Thus far, it appears that these plans will have minimum benefit requirements, which will make them more expensive. There is also concern that the HSA limits may be affected, which may mean less of a tax advantage. Accordingly, they may become obsolete due to their high cost under the new health care bill.
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http://www.healthinsurancebrokeronline.com/ to comment on our recent health insurance news story on the recent Health Insurance Reform attempts. What is going to be next?
