Are Health Savings Accounts a Problem? Or an Opportunity?

By William G. Stuart | Originally posted on LinkedIn for MaxHSA

Another recent article takes aim at Health Savings Accounts. The sniper's aim may be perfect, but she may be shooting at the wrong target.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has added a new installment in its criticism of Health Savings Accounts (see here). The Center, which analyzes federal programs and assesses their impact on lower-income Americans, has produced three other analyses during the past 18 months that take aim at Health Savings Accounts. The Center is not the only organization to single out these accounts, though it is among the most persistent.

Here are the traps into which these analyses and analysts typically fall:

• They do not distinguish between the underlying medical plan and the financial account that helps customers pay their share of medical expenses.

• They do not acknowledge that most plans with high deductibles - a target of much of their criticism of Health Savings Accounts - are not designed to allow a covered person to open and fund a Health Savings Account to stretch their reimbursement dollars.

• They argue that because Health Savings Accounts do not help every American - regardless of race or income - equally, they are not fair.

Let's examine this round of criticisms to see whether Health Savings Accounts are a problem - or an opportunity.