Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Health Savings Accounts Under Attack
Red State ^ | 7/6/12 | Darling

Posted on 07/06/2012 7:42:29 PM PDT by 54fighting

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are an oasis in the desert of government-run health care. That is why President Obama’s health care bureaucrats are intent on killing HSAs.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal piece by 2021, health care spending will be almost one fifth of the whole U.S. economy. In nine years, the government share will be about half.

By 2021, health-care spending is likely to be nearly a fifth of the U.S. economy, at 19.6% of gross domestic product, up from 17.9%, or roughly a sixth, in 2010. The government share of the spending also would be greater, at nearly 50%, up from 46%, mostly because of the anticipated growth in Medicare enrollment.

The government is projected to spend more on health care than the private sector. That is a degree of socialism that is accelerating under ObamaCare and will cause the health care providers to be less responsive to consumers.

HSAs are a force for good in health care markets and have been a positive element of the market since their creation in 2003. An HSA is an account that individuals can set up to earn tax free health care funds on an annual basis. They have been increasing in use since the day they were created.

The idea behind these private accounts is to empower the consumer to make decisions on how to spend tax exempt dollars. Clearly, the last bastion of free market forces with the existence of HSAs is a threat to government run health care. As a result, government bureaucrats are targeting HSAs for death.

HSAs provide quality medical coverage at the direction of the policyholder — not the government or insurance company bureaucrats. That is why liberals hate them.

HSAs provide power to the consumer to make health care choices. People who have them, love them, because it empowers the consumer to make their own choices.

It should not come as a surprise that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is promulgating regulations that could rip 5 million policies out of the hands of small business plans and individuals. Known as “Medical Loss Ratio,” these new regulations will make it nearly impossible for individuals or small businesses to use HSAs in the ObamaCare health exchanges.

Many states will resist setting up ObamaCare exchanges for fear that the federal government will use these exchanges to control state based health care policy. The battle over full repeal of ObamaCare will be fought into the fall elections, yet the bureaucrats in the Obama Administration will be working overtime to implement a law they hope will not be repealed by the voters this fall.

This crushing of free market HSAs is consistent with the liberal idea of creeping socialism. They will not exterminate the free market in one day, or even one year, but over a long drawn out period of time. The slow creep to socialism is difficult to stop, because it is incremental and done in small steps and by quiet bureaucrats who you will never hear about.

We all known that ObamaCare was built on a foundation of deceit but one promise made by the president was perfectly clear — he said that if you liked your plan and wanted to keep it — you could. Add this to the long list of broken Obama promises. Apparently Obama’s promise to allow you to keep your plan will not extend to HSAs should this new “Medical Loss Ratio” rule be implemented by Obama’s HHS Department.

Now that the Supreme Court has tossed another roadblock in the way of full repeal of ObamaCare, conservatives need to dig in and defend HSAs as one of the few remaining free market ideas left that provides consumers with the power over health care decisions.

Many conservatives understand that ObamaCare was drafted in such a way as to deftly move people out of the private health market and into a government-run system. Individuals and small business HSAs policyholders appear to be the first guinea pig in this experiment.

Congress needs to make sure to play defense on the free market and make sure that HSAs are not the next casualty of government centered health care.


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: healthcare; hhs; hsa; obamacare
They can have my HSA when then take it out of my cold dead hands
1 posted on 07/06/2012 7:42:41 PM PDT by 54fighting
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: 54fighting

I love my HSA. It is dirt cheap with a $6,000 deductable (family). Considering I have been to the doctor exactly once in the last 7 years, it is the perfect policy for me.


2 posted on 07/06/2012 7:54:38 PM PDT by wolfman23601
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 54fighting
My wife and I gave up our HSA under her plan 3 years ago.
my coverage was better and cheaper without it.
3 posted on 07/06/2012 7:55:06 PM PDT by stylin19a (Obama - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 54fighting
What happens if you don't want to use an Obamacare health exchange? Actually what is an Obamacare health exchange?
4 posted on 07/06/2012 8:17:04 PM PDT by SHOOT THE MOON bat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 54fighting

Trouble is our HSA’s are more in the hands of the gubmit than in ours. Wonder what penalty would be on just cashin it in and bury it in an old boot.

Another in a long list of resons we MUST rid ourselves of these azzes. It’s coming down to vote em out or fight em for our liberty.


5 posted on 07/06/2012 8:17:33 PM PDT by X-spurt (It is truly time for ON YOUR FEET or on your knees)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 54fighting

No one in this country imagines that Obama had anything good in mind with his imposition of obamaKKKare.


6 posted on 07/06/2012 8:46:14 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 54fighting

HSAs were supposedly the good part of the Medicare drug bill. Get the foot of individual control in the door and give it a chance to grow, possibly staving off socialized medicine in one form or another.

The best-laid plans of Republicans aft gang agley when the rats start gnawing at them.


7 posted on 07/06/2012 8:56:49 PM PDT by firebrand
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: X-spurt

It’s all about total control (control freaks). If we as a population do not exterminate obamacare....our country as we know will be doomed. By 2020 there will be no freedom left, and probably no health care. Only the privileged will have health care, everyone else is on their own. The black market, mom & pop healthcare will be hidden and use the barter system. We will have no freedoms, our food will be rationed and only allowed to eat or drink what our government masters allow. Of course, any health care will require you have the installed RFID chip, this chip will provide the gub with many updates about your body.

Bottom line, if you think what I just posted is crazy, well, think long and hard, then read the ACA.


8 posted on 07/06/2012 10:41:33 PM PDT by Fully Awake DAV (Navy Vet when homosexuality was not tolerated)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: 54fighting

What they really want to get their hands on are 401Ks. I expect that if he gets re-elected, and we don’t get a LOT of CONSERVATIVES in House and Senate, they WILL steal them by the middle of 2014.


9 posted on 07/06/2012 10:42:26 PM PDT by LegendHasIt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LegendHasIt

Maybe sooner than 2014. Although given the real time capabilities allowed in the ACA, the IRS will be able (albeit legally) to remove saving’s from any account. The country as we know it today, even with the current messed up issues, will be a nightmare. There will be no semblance of normal, no Monday night football, kids soccer games, free enterprise...gone. Stores by 2020 will be gub run. If you do not take the chip, you will not be allowed to live within society, terminated or living in obscurity.

What was once our honoured Constitution...will be replaced by the ever growing Affordable Care Act, the new constitution.


10 posted on 07/06/2012 11:18:55 PM PDT by Fully Awake DAV (Navy Vet when homosexuality was not tolerated)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Fully Awake DAV
"....or living in obscurity."

Heh, I'm already doing my best to do that.

11 posted on 07/06/2012 11:44:20 PM PDT by LegendHasIt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: LegendHasIt

Ha ha ha....mights well laugh while it’s still legal. Thought I was the only one living in obscurity, alone in the mountains and only interact with society on my terms.

Gee I sure used a lot of I and me....oh no just like....potus the teleprompter reader.


12 posted on 07/07/2012 12:06:20 AM PDT by Fully Awake DAV (Navy Vet when homosexuality was not tolerated)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: 54fighting

I used to love my HSA but the premiums have more than doubled in the last couple of years. Yes, we have had to use it and that’s the trouble with health insurance. It’s great unless you use it, and then it skyrockets! One problem with them is that the gov’t mandates certain coverages you MUST have like paying for mammo’s, pap smears and certain other things. Someone has to pay for those since a lot of people buy into getting all that done every year. I don’t. I do it every five years because to be honest I made up my mind NOT to ever take chemotherapy YEARS ago. We are thinking of dropping our insurance for the time being! WE will still pay any medical bills that should arise....just monthly! I mean...I had a colonoscopy last summer...the bill was over $5,000.00. When I had one three years before, it wasn’t even $2,000.00! It’s become a HUGE money maker for hospitals! I’ve had my last one!!


13 posted on 07/07/2012 3:39:05 AM PDT by Cricket24 (Telling the truth is not attacking someone!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fully Awake DAV

Nothing like doom and gloom to start the morning.......

Many reasons why that your d&g will not happen quite that way.

Patriotic Americans are fired up and liberals, holder’s people and other freeloaders are not, meaning it is more likely by the day we will witness a historical “liberals tossing out of office”.

In the now unlikely event nobama wins again, there will begin a mass secession movement, with all but the most liberal States restarting our Founding Father’s enveavor.

If your sad scenario comes to pass, the aggressive Countries like ex-USSR and China or even Latin America will make their move to conquer what’s left of a defenseless and destitute USA.

As I have pointed out before here on FR, yes this is a clearly a very serious situation, but this is not America’s darkest day nor her worst challenge ever faced. Each and every time America has come back from the brink even better and stronger. History points out that these same liberal/progressive/socialists have tried this same ploy before and each time America has finally seen the truth and tossed it out.

One of America’s basic strengths is tolerance, almost suicidally giving the benefit of the doubt, until it becomes clear we are being duped or put in danger.

The negativity of doom and gloom will not generate the corrective actions, optimism and the recognition that we are keepers of a most special flame will prevail.


14 posted on 07/07/2012 7:14:19 AM PDT by X-spurt (It is truly time for ON YOUR FEET or on your knees)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Fully Awake DAV

Nope, there are a few of us.. Out at the ‘gulch’ am pretty much completely self-sufficient, other than fuel and internet connection. Sometimes I don’t see a face or utter a word for two weeks.


15 posted on 07/07/2012 11:41:00 AM PDT by LegendHasIt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: X-spurt
In the now unlikely event nobama wins again, there will begin a mass secession movement, with all but the most liberal States restarting our Founding Father’s enveavor.

Nice to know some Freepers have an imaganitive sense of humor. This nation's citizens list their collective backbones years ago. Goin to a TEA Party rally- yeah, ok. That doesn't crimp our lifestyle or pocketbooks too deeply. But pressing states to withdraw from the union and or individuals rising up? That is hilarious. That is an investment way too many don't have the stomach for.

16 posted on 07/07/2012 4:20:45 PM PDT by TheBattman (Isn't the lesser evil... still evil?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson