Posted on 08/02/2018 10:16:47 AM PDT by Red Badger
Available to people only if A) their company offers an HSA, which they can do only if B) they offer a high-deductible health care plan option.
Your company doesn't need to offer them, privates banks and investment companies do. Key Bank offers one.
I’d like to see them eliminate the carryover penalty. I mean, you can only use it for healthcare, so why can’t you carry over and just add less to the HSA the next year, if you choose?
The last time I participated in one of those was over 20 years ago. I ended up using none of the money and lost it all.
ahhh…...My brother has a friend who just took a job selling health insurance plans for a BANK. I wondered what that could be about. Apparently the bank anticipated this move. Thanks for solving the mystery!
I’m a financially sophisticated guy, and HSAs are just too much of a hassle. I know there are advantages there somewhere, somehow, but I just can’t bring myself to invest in fully understanding and leveraging.
What is the average Joe going to do?
Nothing.
The government needs the serfs to squirrel away more of their own money, of course, on very strict terms, to be taken later on to pay for another ridiculous government crony-capitalist policy failure known in America as “health care.”
To the best of my knowledge, an HSA does not have a carryover penalty. Might you be thinking of FSAs (Flexible Spending Account)?
It’s just a regular bank account and the “title” is HSA just like it could be an IRA, it’s how it’s registered. Tax free accumulation and withdrawals for life - excellent idea.
That was probably an “FSA” flexible spending account. In an HSA you do not forfeit the balance at the end of the year, you can keep it (though it still must be used only for health care expenditures).
That’s my main bitch also. Use it or lose it...................
Quite correct. I have an HSA with Key Bank. It offers access checks and even pays a piddly rate of interest.
That’s probably what it is.....it’s my husband’s workplace. But with the FSA we can only use it for healthcare costs.....would be nice to be able to carry over what’s left to the next year without a penalty.
It's like a ROTH IRA, tax free accumulation and withdrawals, for HSA's they need to be health expenses.
I’ve had an HSA for nearly 6 years. Other than one exception, I have been in relatively good health the entire time. But due to the one procudure I’ve had, I’ve only accumulated a net total of barely $5k in my account.
HSAs are a great concept in my opion. It’s your money, and it comes out of your payroll pre-tax (if you have one through an employer) but they can only used for medical or health expenses... but the great thing is, IT’S YOUR MONEY! You are not paying some insurance company and agents who get to keep it if you don’t get sick. You get to keep it.
But back to what I was originally saying, the pre-tax limits are too small compared to how high medical/healtcare related expenses are these days. It’s a really wonderful idea to consider that if a young person could get an HSA in their twenties, and live in relatively good health for a few decades, they will have built up a substantial account to cover medical problems they may encounter in life beyond what insurances or other coverage may handle.
Back in 2000, I had guessed on how much I would use and how it would be used....then came to realize $600 sitting there to be lost. It’s a terrible waste of financial planning with no real incentives.
If they said it could sit in a savings account, up to age 65 (or whenever you start social security), we’d all be better off.
There are different types of plans offered by employers. A Flexible Spending Account (FSA) which is sometimes called a Health Care Spending Account (HCSA) is a “use it or lose it” plan. But the HSA is different, it’s an account you fund tax deferred and any balance just rolls over from year to year so I don’t think it can be lost if you don’t spend it in a given year. You can also invest this tax deferred money that is sitting in your HSA in various mtutual funds offered by the plan, so it’s tax free and it grows (you hope!). I’m using it to stash money for retirement medical expenses which are at least 15 years away so it’s invested in some mutual funds (stock + bonds).
I think the bank she went to work for is selling high-deductible insurance plans along with the HSA products.
FSA’s will let you carry over a piddly limited amount now ($550, if I’m not mistaken) but even with some tax advantages. I am thinking about dropping the FSA next year and putting everything into the HSA.
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