Okay, my last rant against health insurance notwithstanding, I am curious about this new HSA (Health Savings Account) thing. Granted, it's a real "New Kid on the Block" having been legally created in January 2004. What amazes me is the lack of articles on the web (or in the major money-management magazines) that give a good analysis of these creatures, when they represent the right choice for a shopper, etc.
I'm not going to take the time to describe an HSA here. If you're interested, here's a link to a small online CNN/Money article about them. Really briefly though, they are part of the Republicans' big Health Care / Medicare legislation that passed I think around the end of 2003. (You know, the one that was a huge handout to the pharmaceutical industry.)
Part of my thinking is, "Hey, if Republicans created it, it's probably geared to help out the money-conscious yuppie while being a bad idea for most normal people." And while I'm politically a hard-working supporter of the Democratic Party, I think I fit the financial demographic of a Young Republican better.
Essentially, I've been planning to provide for my own retirement/old age for a long time; I make decent pay as a self-employed "small businessman"; and I've made a practice of planning for my future by assuming nobody (specifically the government) is going to be there to take care of me in my old age. I'm part of that Generation X that assumed I would never see a penny of the Social Security that I've had to pay 15% of my earning all my life for.
It's ironic that the [depressing] future I've been planning for is a Republican's Wet Dream. In many ways it's hard to believe I'm not a Republican. It would be interesting to play a hypothetical "what if" where their party wasn't dominated by hypocritical hate-based "Morality" peddlers. Would I have switched sides?
Well, I think I am going to try these Health Saving Accounts out. I'm (relatively) young, I'm in good health, I'm accustomed to paying for my medical care out-of-pocket, and I know how to save for the future. I suspect that, if married with a modicum of disciplined long-term planning, the HSA will represent a better financial deal.
And you know what, I might have to agree with Republicans that if America fostered a prudent style of health care management like these HSAs foster, it might take a big bite out of the wasteful, runaway Health Care spending. But don't tell anyone else I said that!
Posted by Murray Todd Williams at April 1, 2005 08:13 AM