Archive for June, 2008
What do you think of the idea of Optional Universal Health Care?
Given2Fly asked:
Let’s say you want to keep your Private Insurance. You could choose to “opt out” of the Universal Health Care and go with whatever provider you wished. Those of us who want government coverage can remain in the federal system. If you opt out, of course, no HC tax is take from you, and you could invest in a tax free HSA (Health Savings Account) to cover any premiums ect.
The Universal Health Care insured pool would be smaller, but so would the cost associated with maintaining it, as well as payouts.
Brian – If you have ANY kind of health insurance, you are paying for other’s health costs by association. That’s the point of ‘pooling’ which every insurer bases their business off of. The only way around this is to pay your bills in full out of your own pocket.
Erick Rocha
Let’s say you want to keep your Private Insurance. You could choose to “opt out” of the Universal Health Care and go with whatever provider you wished. Those of us who want government coverage can remain in the federal system. If you opt out, of course, no HC tax is take from you, and you could invest in a tax free HSA (Health Savings Account) to cover any premiums ect.
The Universal Health Care insured pool would be smaller, but so would the cost associated with maintaining it, as well as payouts.
Brian – If you have ANY kind of health insurance, you are paying for other’s health costs by association. That’s the point of ‘pooling’ which every insurer bases their business off of. The only way around this is to pay your bills in full out of your own pocket.
Erick Rocha
I’m just curious if any of you have had an HRA or an HSA thru your company with a high deductible health plan?
Left Footed asked:
We are just starting an HRA for one of our divisions (free grant money from the government!) and everyone seems really excited about it. HRA-employer puts money in for them, no wonder why. If a company uses a HSA (Health Savings Account), then the employee typically puts most of the money in the account, but it can be rolled over from year to year and job to job and it earns interest (hopefully!) if you don’t use it all each year for your deductible.
We are just starting an HRA for one of our divisions (free grant money from the government!) and everyone seems really excited about it. HRA-employer puts money in for them, no wonder why. If a company uses a HSA (Health Savings Account), then the employee typically puts most of the money in the account, but it can be rolled over from year to year and job to job and it earns interest (hopefully!) if you don’t use it all each year for your deductible.
They say this is the new way in health insurance, but in my part of US (Northeast), it hasn’t caught on too much yet. HMO’s are still the way most companies around here are insuring their employees.
Bottom line-have you ever had one or both of these types of accounts, and what did you think of it? Better than an HMO or not?
Thanks in advance!
Joanna




















