Health Savings Accounts: Early Estimates Of National Take-Up

• Published in: Health Affairs Vol. 24; no. 6; pp. 1582 - 1591
• Main Authors: Feldman, Roger, Parente, Stephen T, Abraham, Jean, Christianson, Jon B, Taylor, Ruth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Health Affairs 01.11.2005; The People to People Health Foundation, Inc., Project HOPE
• Subjects: Adult; Community Participation; Employers; Health Benefit Plans, Employee; Health care policy; Health insurance; Health savings accounts; Humans; Medical savings accounts; Medical Savings Accounts - economics; Medical Savings Accounts - utilization; Medically Uninsured; Medicare - legislation & jurisprudence; Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement & Modernization Act 2003-US; Middle Aged; Statistical analysis; Studies; Tax credits; Uninsured people; United States; United States > US
• ISSN: 0278-2715; 1544-5208; 2694-233X
• DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.24.6.1582

The 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) approved tax-advantaged health savings accounts (HSAs) for certain high-deductible health insurance plans. We predict that MMA could lead to approximately 3.2 million HSA contracts among Americans ages 19-64 who are not students, not enrolled in public health insurance plans, and not eligible for group coverage as a dependent. We simulate the effect of several additional tax subsidies for HSAs. We predict that the Bush administration's refundable tax-credit proposal would double HSA take-up and reduce the number of uninsured people by 2.9 million, at an annual cost of $8.1 billion.