Health Savings Account-Health Savings Account Info

Nag asked:


Hi,

Typically our HMO pays 80% of the bill and we need to pay 20% of the bill which are few thousands $$$.We plan to open an HSA(Health Savings Account) to cover our baby birth/delivery expenses.

I didn’t see child birth in IRS form on HSA

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p502/index.html

But not sure whether child birth related expenses are eligible medical expenses or not.

Does any one used HSA for child birth/delivery expenses.

Thx in advance for your time and help…
Do we need to use the funds in the same calendar year?

Jamar Egvirre

the d asked:


Look at inflation? I bet everything has gone up in price 70% since september 13 2001. gas, houses, health insurance, food, college eduacation> WHat else hasn’t gone throught the roof? THen if you have savings account you get s*hit for interest rates,

Does anybody else feel this way?

Darrick Pekrul

Kaper asked:


I have noticed a ton of questions in the past two days about sick dogs. I know they are always here, but it seems lately there are a lot more. The excuse is always I can’t afford a vet.
I have gotten into several debates about this. People have accused me (and others with a similar opinion) of judging and sayin that dogs are for rich people.
The argument seems to be, my dog is better off living with me with no healthcare than in the shelter where I got him from.
While I agree that it is better to be rescued, my argument lies in, how much better will it be if the dog is suffering from something you cannot pay to treat?
My lab was really sick last week. The vet thought it could be pancreatitis or a partial blockage. Neither fatal, if treated. But if I could not afford the treatment he would certainly suffer and it could become fatal.
What happens if the dog comes down with a serious illness? Even euthanizing a dog that is suffering cost money.

It takes very little money set aside each week to end up with a decent vet savings account. Less, in fact, than what most pay for internet service per month. I know of many people on here that have limited income that still manage to provide their dog with health care.

In my opinion, it is not about money, it is about priority.

I pay $15 a month per dog for pet insurance. That is going to cover a good portion of my $600 vet bill from last week.

What are your thoughts?
Do you have pet insurance or a savings account?
I am insured through PC Pet insurance. It is only basic but so far has covered enough. I do have my own savings account I would dip into.

Jessie- You are so right.

And I am not saying that you should have to go out and pay for expensive medical treatments. What I really mean is that you have enough money to at least go to the vet. As I said, even if the dog has to be PTS because treatment is too costly, that would cost money.
Funny, people don’t think there dogs can be hit by cars.
Last September my Lab (the same one) were running, he was on leash. I stopped to cross the busy street, using a crosswalk and lights. Traffic stopped for me and we proceeded to cross. Unfortunately a vehicle behind the stopped traffic didn’t stop and rear ended the vehicle we were in front of. Both me and my dog were struck.
I suffered some injuries and had to go the hospital. Lucky for me, the dog was unharmed (it sort of knocked him off his feet and he rolled out of harms way).

Allen Gionta

snoopy_0752 asked:


won’t Pelosi let us read it, and why didn’t she tell us about all the new taxes?

Here they all are, with a brief description and page number:

• Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).

• Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

• Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

• Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs would face an annual cap of $2500 (currently uncapped).

• Increased Additional Tax on Non-Qualified HSA Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10 percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.)

• Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector participation in delivery of Medicare services.

• Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45 percent—a new effective top rate.

• Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical devices sold to the general public.

• Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for trade or business payments. Current law limits to just persons for small business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to exchanges of property.

• Delay in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Delays for nine years the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision from the American Jobs Creation Act

• Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page 346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking to avoid double taxation of earnings.

• Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily business-related.

• Application of “More Likely Than Not” Rule (Page 357): Publicly-traded partnerships and corporations with annual gross receipts in excess of $100 million have raised standards on penalties. If there is a tax underpayment by these taxpayers, they must be able to prove that the estimated tax paid would have more likely than not been sufficient to cover final tax liability.

I know Liberals still think the Government is here to help...the only question I have is who? Us...or themselves?
Oh...and here is where you will find the IRS will come after you if you do not, and I quote from the bill, "ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE
COVERAGE."

‘‘PART VIII—HEALTH CARE RELATED TAXES
‘‘SUBPART A. TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE."
22 ‘‘Subpart A—Tax on Individuals Without Acceptable
23 Health Care Coverage

page 296.

Willie Steinbruckner

texaslibsticker asked:


Instead of nationalized or socialized health insurance, shouldn’t all those promoting choice be backing my plan?

My plan is a medical savings account, which you contribute in to like insurance, but it’s actually an interest bearing savings account, and your insurance card is a bank check/ debit card. Since the account is in your name, you can take it with you from job to job. You can use it for your children, or even use it to take your brother for a check up, and you can use it to take a homeless person in to be de-liced!

Under any current insurance plan, including the socialized and nationalized plans, when you die your insurance coverage dies with you. With this plan, you would simply put it in your will, and include with your estate.

So my medical savings account is all about choice… what do you think?
Nokill, the number of uninsured includes people that refuse to pay for insurance, so with this trillion dollar fiasco is to insure them. Most of those people don’t go to the doctor, they only go when they’re sick, and they don’t get sick that often. I know people that go years between visits, myself included. I
Emma, you’re thinking about people that are already in the unhealthy part of their life, and we can let them be subject to the Obama discussions, or let them finish out their life on medicaid. The amount of money paid into social security and medicare from your paychecks would be a great seed for it, and instead of putting money in the coffers of the corrupt government, put that money in you account and buy catastrophic insurance.

I pay about $8,000 a year for private insurance, but I spend closer to about $700, including medicines. That could go up, or it could go down. But, we had only 3 major emergencies in my kids 18 years of life, probably totaled around 20 grand. But if I had saved $500 a month (CBO’s avarage monthly insurance premium), I would have over a 100 grand in the account.
It doesn’t really have anything to do with abortion, but the liberals want to have a choice, so I figure there should be more choice. Like I should be able to choose whether to wear a seat belt. I should be able to choose if I want insurance. I should be able to choose… I wished I could choose to abort liberals.

Jaimee Evens

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

Lemuel Sangha

jusme asked:


Nelson also secured full and permanent federal funding for his state to extend Medicaid eligibility to everyone below 133 percent of the federal poverty level. The bill would require all states to do so, but Nebraska alone would not be required to pay a portion of the additional cost after 2016. Nelson also won concessions for qualifying nonprofit insurers and for providers of supplemental Medicare coverage from a new insurance tax, and he was able to roll back cuts to health savings accounts.

Man had convictions didn’t he?

Nicolas Vigneault

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

Yasuko Rady

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

Annamaria Vonniederhaus

Rise Above asked:


Personally I’d rather see a system more like Singapore has. It wouldn’t make me popular in conservative circles but I’d like everyone (and I do mean everyone) to have a basic government run catastrophic health insurance policy. Everyone would have a health savings account. People who want better coverage could buy it in the open market and from any company that chose ot offer it. Private companies could offer the basic plan also but at the same cost and benefit level as the govt. plan. The basic system would have copays that would be subsidized for people or families below a certain income level. Hospitals and doctors would be required to publish prices. Healthcare providers would be protected by clamping down on frivolous lawsuits. Obviously since everyone is covered there are no issues with pre-existing conditions.
Did I miss anything (besides cost and how to pay)? I’d like some constructive criticism.
and…. If Congress wrote a plan like this, how many pages would it take? 1000? 1500? 2000?
James, that’s truly funny!
O baa maa, if private companies figured they could administer the plans more efficiently and make money on the they should be allowed to.
This would mean that the govt. plan would have to pay for itself and not be subsidized by the general fund. I tried not to get too much more involved in the initial question for fear of making it waay too long. It’s already long enough that people’s eyes probably glaze over halfway through.
jehen, try to rise above the stupid ideological rhetoric. If you claim that conservatives want people to die and go bankrupt, you’ll be countered by people who rightfully say that the current proposals will ration healthcare, reduce medicare benefits and cause even more deaths. Getting into this argument is pointless. It doesn’t get us anywhere so unless you have something constructive to add, please move on to the next question.
rotorhead, I think you might be confusing Singapore with Thailand but I’m no expert.
Patriot, thanks for the response but laying blame on the insurance companies for blaming hospitals doesn’t really address the issue. Your cut and paste job is impressive too but I don’t see where it’s at all related to my question. I’m actually advocating a universal plan. What’s the point of trying to sell me on a plan when I’m already sold?
I will check out your links later when I have time.

Here’s a question for you. Why does the US have a higher death rate for younger children? Reading and regurgitating statistics doesn’t necessarily prove anything if you don’t know the details behind the stats.
O baa maa, paying would be the sticking point but when I read how economical the Singaporean plan is, I can’t help but think that we could cover everyone and save money. This is what we are being pitched now but I don’t think what’s being proposed it going to achieve that. The govt. is legislating mandatory care, not making people be directly responsible for costs and leaving out tort reform to save costs and allow more doctors to afford their insurance.
I have a basic plan that costs about $200.00 and month. I’m healthy and 48y.o. Younger people would be cheaper but jus like S.S. the system would be dependent on people paying all through their life not just to spread costs to all citizens but to spread the costx vs. benefits across ones whole life.
I haven’t put a great amount of though into it but people who can pay the minimum would pay. People who cannot would be subsidized. People who can afford better plans would pay for the basic plan and the premium plans would be taxed.
OB, I agree with your points but lately I’ve been swayed by logical arguments that show other countries have done this effectively.
It once seemed that we were going to have this shoved down out throats but now that seems doubtful.
I think that if this was tweaked and pitched properly it could pass and be a benefit. I suppose we will eventually have something like this forced upon us so my intent was to find something more palatable. My plan should satisfy public option proponents but they’d have to accept tort reform. Covering everyone would take away concern about pre-existing conditions, etc.
What I lack is hard number. How much do we spend yearly on insurance, care and drugs. How much on Medicare, medicaid and the VA. Lump that together, calculate savings from efficiency and tort reform and divide by the number of citizens.
If someone could put numbers to the proposals it would show how feasible these plans are.
Thanks for all you input.
jehen, thanks for the response. I agree with most of what you say but in one breath you say the current proposals are not adequate and in the next you say they won’t pass because people oppose them. Well if they’re not sufficient, we should all oppose them until something better is proposed. If you’re going to condemn Republicans and healthcare lobbyists don’t forget to include some Democrats and the legal lobby. If it’s only Republicans voting no to preserve healthcare lobby dollars, the measures would have passed long ago. If you’re going to ask to ***** the healthcare lobby the attorneys have to get it also.
If we had the right compromise I believe that it could be passed.

Judson Shick