Health Savings Account-Health Savings Account Info

What the fu– asked:


We have Blue Cross Blue Shield with a health savings account that my husband’s employer doesn’t contribute to and we can’t afford to contribute to. So, husband went to doc last month for an ear infection. Paid $10 copay then we got a $74 bill in the mail. We pay $200 a month for this insurance. The deductible is $2600. It’s so absurd. My 1 year old has great health insurance through child health plus…thank god for that. We’ve had much better health insurance in the past but now, here we are in our late 30′s and we have the worstinsurance we’ve ever had.

I know we’re lucky to have any insurance at all. My husband and I work p/t. His hours got cut and will hopefully return to f/t in the fall but that won’t change our insurance.

I was just wondering what people do? We just had a friend who spent a month and a half in the hospital with swine flu. Luckily his wife is a college professor and has good insurance but what if that happened to us? It’s just so scary. What if we’re in a car accident? Ugh.

Lana Leming

guitar_girl1988 asked:


I have been employed at my job for over three years. within the last 6 months, they promised to get me insurance. But, the insurance amount that they agreed to pay is not even worth having. Therefore, I began looking into Health Savings Accounts and that sort of thing. I don’t know much about them. Does anyone else have one, are they beneficial, and how do they work?

Kyle Bargar

under_fire53 asked:


Finance guru Earl Matthews (founder of aid4families.com) has set his sights on revolutionizing the pension plans of several countries. Like many of his brethren, David Filo and Jerry Yang (founders of Yahoo), Larry Page and Sergey Brin ( founders of google), and Chris Dewolf & Tom Anderson ( founders of Myspace), a generation that grew up under the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, seem determined to change every aspect of society. It seems odd that while we are talking about the government being involved in universal health care and at the same time private savings accounts and privatizing pensions. The government may get your teeth fixed until you are 90 but the money for food to use those teeth on will be up to you to find. Do you support universal health care and do you support public pension schemes relying on “for profit” fund managers?
http://www.aid4families.com/Press%20Release.html

Doug Engessor

T D asked:


How is this going to win over those who currently question their support for Obama?

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In a fiery speech that had her conservative Colorado audience cheering, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann railed against the dangers of health care reform and other Democratic initiatives, warning the proposals “have the strength to destroy this country forever.”

“You’re either for us or against us on this issue,” she said after deriding U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey, a Fort Collins Democrat, for “[sitting] on the fence” about health care proposals at recent town halls.

Bachmann earlier this month joined former U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, the Republican ousted from office last year by Markey, in a telephone town hall where she told abortion opponents the health care “battle will be won – on our knees in prayer and fasting.”

“Right now, we are looking at reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom,” she said. “And we may never be able to restore it if we don’t man up and take this one on.”

Rather than hand over the health care industry’s “18 percent” of the economy to control by the federal government, which Bachmann warned would create “a critical mass [where] you are no longer a free-market economy,” she offered her own set of proposals to fix the system:

• “Erase the boundaries around every single state when it comes to health care,” enabling consumers to purchase insurance across state lines;

• increase the use of health savings accounts and allow everyone to “take full deductibility of all medical expenses,” including insurance premiums;

• and throw in tort reform.

“Do a few other tweaks and you’re there,” Bachmann said. “Your whole crisis is gone.”

Bachmann closed by urging the audience at the nonpartisan group’s fundraiser to defeat Democrats at the ballot box.

“You can win these seats back,” she urged the audience. “Hey, I got elected in Franken country!”

Margo Turnquist

AnonymousChris asked:


My wife and I live in an apartment, I’m 22 and she’s 19.
Rent is $599 a Month
Water is around $20 a month.
Electric is about $90 a month.
Phone (cell) is $90 a month.
Cable and net are $95 a month.
Renters insurance if $17 a month
Car insurance is $55 a month
$20 a week on gas
$70-$100 a week on groceries (and other stuff we need)

I have 1 part time job -computer tech- (3 hours a day) making about $125 a week. (because of this job I get to take college classes for free)

And another part time job -designer for sign shop- (4 hours a day) making $275 a week. (because of this job, I get all mechanical work to my car done free)

My wife doesn’t work, and occasionally I Get a freelance graphic design job. Technically, Im still enrolled in college. I have 3 more classes to take for a bachelors majoring in visual communication (graphic design). I eat at restaurants maybe 2 times a month but I don’t have health insurance or savings account- so if something major happens, I’m screwed. I have a comfortable life and have no government assistance. I can’t afford everything I want (but who can, right?)~ but I don’t think I’m in middle class, because I don’t really make much.

I’m in no threat of losing my jobs either.

Andy

jussagirl asked:


I went to the dentist and found out that I need to get a root canal and crown. The cost is really expensive and I cannot afford it. The only other option is to pull the tooth for a much lower cost. With my insurance I was quoted a $1400 co-pay because two teeth are affected. My teeth are extremely tight.

If I were to wait until next year’s insurance coverage and wait until I switch to a better health plan and also elect to get the health savings plan (money will be in account January 1st, and withdrawn from payroll), would it be possible that I am told that it is a “preexisting condition?”

I currently have Cigna DHMO, which has a copay of up to $500 per procedure (root canal and crown seems to be two different things). It seems as though I am quoted an average co-pay of $350 per procedure. I am thinking of switching to the Delta traditional plan, which pays 80% of the root canal and just 50% for the crown.

Do you think I’m better off sticking with my current plan? And could I possibly lose this benefit by waiting and/or switching insurance companies? I plan to get this done very early in January.

Thanks for your help!

Anne

beansboy4u asked:


A friend of mine has been going through a rough time lately and is out of options in caring for his mother.

He is 23, and his mother is 49. She has been unemployed for several years now and depleted her savings/unemployment accounts some time ago. They applied for Medicare, early last year, but were denied care. I do not fully understand her illness, but it has to do with her heart rate dropping to a point where she gets sick, so it has hindered her from finding work. She’s been to numerous doctors to see what is wrong, but it’s been a while since her last visit because she no longer has insurance, and no one had been able to diagnose her with anything. Shes been turned down for disability. Hes been taking care of her from a distance, shes in Miami and hes in Key West. He recently lost his job and can no longer care for her, on top of her house being foreclosed. They have no money for assisted living at this point.

What can he do?? If anything, he’s desperate.

Thanks for your help.

Todd Baier

artsy_fartsy asked:


i have to make a monthly budget for a careers project…my career is an actress/ waitress(so im on a low budget)…but for some things i dont know how much money it costs…please help for the following costs:

health insurance
life insurance
credit card (loan?)
pet medical (one dog)
health club..?
retirement account (rrsp)
investment account
canada savings bond

please help me figure out how much i should spend on each of these a month if im on a very low budget

Adelaide Prock

The MobFather asked:


Aptly called the Patients’ Choice Act, it provides a path to universal coverage by redirecting current subsidies for health insurance to individuals. It also provides a new safety net that guarantees access to insurance for those with pre-existing conditions.

The nexus of their plan is redirecting the $300 billion annual tax subsidy for employment-based health insurance to individuals in the form of refundable, advanceable tax credits. Families would get $5,700 a year and individuals $2,300 to buy insurance and invest in Health Savings Accounts.

Low-income Americans would get a supplemental debit card of up to $5,000 to help them purchase insurance and pay out-of-pocket costs. They would have an incentive to spend wisely since up to one-fourth of any unspent money in the accounts could be rolled over to the next year. The combination of the refundable tax credit and debit card gives lower-income Americans a way out of the Medicaid ghetto so they can have the dignity of private insurance.

States could provide one-stop insurance shopping through new Health Care Exchanges rather than giving the federal government control, as most Democratic plans would do. And it frees up Medicaid money and provides added resources to the states to target additional help to those with disabilities and low incomes. It also calls for auto-enrollment to expand insurance coverage: People will have many options and opportunities to select insurance, but if they don’t make an active choice they can be automatically enrolled in private policies financed by the tax credit.

Who will control the system? Doctors and patients, or politicians and regulators? That’s the crux of this year’s health-care debate.

This is the GOP plan: More Coverage, Less Cost without Government Intrusion into our decision making

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124277551107536875.html

PS. This was put out in the middle May, 2009.

Lonny Campolongo

JP asked:


A government health insurance plan sounds nice and pretty, but when you consider a little bit of history concerning the government and its regulation of the private insurance market and consider basic economics it’s pretty darn clear that as time goes on more and more people will be forced into government run plans.

First, the lie that the government wishes to just “compete” with private insurers is complete BOGUS. The federal (and state governments) already heavily regulate the private insurance market. Over the years governments (both state and federal) have required insurers to cover more and more procedures, many which have nothing to do with health thereby forcing customers to shell out more money instead of just simply allowing consumers to customize their plan….you know kinda like how you do with other insurance.

Also doctors spend around 30 billion per year (according to CNN) on malpractice insurance. So if we could have some tort reform of some sort to reduce law suit abuse.

But the point I REALLY try to make to people is this….Private insurance companies need to at least break even to keep themselves in business. Government does not. Government can afford to operate at a loss because it has an endless supply of tax revenue and the ability to borrow money from sales of bonds or by monetizing the debt with the Federal Reserve. Now ask yourself this….if you were a business of some sort, and you were competing against someone who could afford to operate at a loss indefinitely don’t you think you would have a hard time competing against them? They could afford to continually undercut you (at their loss) and eventually put you out of business. So as you can see the government is NOT competing against private insurers in a FREE market because
1) they regulate their competitors already and 2) they can afford to lose as much money as they want since they do not need to make a profit or even break even to stay in business.

Now some people would say that as long as they can afford to give people cheap medical care then it shouldn’t really matter if they operate at a loss….Well ok, but there is one problem with that and that is supply

If the government sets prices artificially low then their will be an increase in demand for those services. The system will not be able to handle everybody in a timely manner which will lead to long waits and rationing. Now to be clear there already is rationing today just as their is rationing of every product and service we buy….the rationing factor is the price. There are ways to lower the price using Free market solutions instead of the heavy coercive hand of government such as:

Tax deductions for health savings accounts that can be used towards deductibles or insurance premiums, tort reform, allowing private insurance to compete in a free market unlike what it has endured over the years as increased government regulation has increased the price.

I’m starting to ramble, but the main point I wanted to put out for debate is that government is NOT competing against private insurers because it is government that is setting the terms of competition and not the market and also the government can afford to operate at a loss while private insurers can’t. Talk about a monopoly!

Please if all you can say is a bunch of rude or ignorant things then please don’t comment.

Emilio Vertrees