Health Savings Account-Health Savings Account Info

Neal asked:


My local Blue Cross Blue Shield is what nearly everyone in my area has. They do not offer any high-deductible plans that cover only major illnesses/injuries. All their plans cover everything from sprained ankles to the common cold. As a result, all their plans are unreasonably expensive for what I want.

I don’t need or want to pay for coverage for every little thing. I just want coverage for major things costing many thousands of dollars (e.g., cancer, a broken neck, etc). I’ll use a Health Savings Account for common everyday health care.

Where should I look for this kind of coverage? If no local health insurance companies are offering it in my area, can I buy it from some national or out-of-region company?

Thanks!

Lucas Mcleon

DJ[MAZJHICK] asked:


i cant afford to get a lawyer just for a few questions so im hoping someone can give me some tips. so my husband and i are getting a divorce in the state of hawaii (we live there), we cant come to an agreement on spousal support.
i need health insurance but my husband is not willing to pay for it. i have to raise two kids, one being young and the other is almost going to college. i have a medical condition that i will have to live with for the rest of my life. i cannot work a lot due to back problems and my earning potential is not so great.
what can i do if my husband does not want to pay for my health insurance? im not willing to accept the spousal support offer unless my health insurance is paid too. also, the court does assess your assets and financial resources, do they check your bank records? if there is a savings account for college, do they take that into consideration too?

Ima Hardister

MB asked:


Mom is bipolar taking one pill a day, is she likely to get custody of her child?
No drug or recent alcohol use, just cigarettes but have been wearing the patches to try to cut down or even eventually quit.

Never been in jail, no criminal history, just a few traffic tickets.

Immediate and extended family has no criminal history. No child related to her is in counseling for anything.
Mom only has a job making 7 dollars an hour but has a permanent roof, land and food, and vehicle.

Does the woman have a chance at custody? Oh, good credit too with something in savings..
The child is only currently just past six month of age and has lived all of his life at moms parents house with mom.

Also one last thing the Church of Christ is her choice of religion and where she will take her son. Everyone in her extended family is also active church members.

Dad smokes and not making an effort to quit even around his kid.

Has spent one night in jail in the past.

Voluntarily terminated his rights to two kids from a previous marriage.

His brother is a *** offender.
His two young nieces in the family are already is counseling for being molested not from the brother but from two other guys.

The dad does make about 15dollars an hour and has been at his job longer.
The dad will probably lose his current transportation in the divorce cause it’s in his wife’s name because he has terrible credit and can’t count money.
Currently has nothing in a savings account. Does not and will probably never go back to church. Extended family does not go either.

Dad is not likely to want to stay living over at his parents house. In other words, that’s not really a permanent address for him. He has no house of his own or vehicle in his name. The car he does have is not safe for the child now. Its a small truck without a back seat.

Dad does have health coverage at his job but the job is an hour a way and half his paycheck goes to gas and vehicle upkeep.

“Yeah mom screwed up when she married this guy” I know….
If there is any Christians on here that don’t believe in divorce you know that I am going through %$#$% right now. Please pray for my marriage. Most of all pray that I get custody so my son will have a chance at knowing the Lord.
If dad gets primary custody my son will probably grow up and well you know, not be a productive member of society is a nice way of putting it.

Sirena Celenza

dolphin314etc asked:


Healthcare — Price Elasticity of Demand — Could it Solve Our Problem?
You remember from Econ 101 “Price Elasticity of Demand” —- as the price goes up the demand for a good or service goes down.

If hamburgers are $1 each, I want lots of hamburgers.

If hamburgers are $4 each, I want one hamburger, maybe two.

If hamburgers are $8 each, I want one, maybe

If hamburgers are $18.00 each, I don’t want any, maybe I’ll try a hot dog.

With healthcare there is no hot dog. Maybe I’ll try sufferring, or a Shaman, or dying, or Voodoo, or Homeopathic/Ayurvedic medicine. Those are not real possibilities for most Americans. There’s no real substitute for healthcare that anybody I know would want.

But how much healthcare I buy could very easily be a function of how much they want for it. I see my doctor about 4 times per year at $75 each visit. If he wanted $10 per visit, I might see him 6 times per year. If he wanted $500 per visit, I might see him only in dire emergencies.

The load on the healthcare system in terms of patient throughput is a function of the cost to the patient.

Socialized medicine in which the costs to the patients are nil or almost nil could result in a huge load on the healthcare system.

Co-pays of 25% or 40% (which could come out of health savings accounts) on insurance contracts that are fair but affordable, would result in a lowering of health services utilization nationwide.

We might turn out to be over-built and over staffed in the healthcare area.

Couldn’t happen you say.

It happened in housing.

Nobody thought it could happen there.

But suddenly the prices of keeping up payments on the mortgages got too high.

People walked away.

The demand for housing got smaller, or put another way, the housing demand got ot be for smaller houses or maybe just apartments.

This could happen in healthcare — price elasticity of demand.

If demand for healthcare came under control, and got down to a moderate level, the healthcare crisis would be over. So making healthcare cheaper is not the answer. We might be better off making it more costly to the patient in terms of their direct cash payment ot the healthcare provider (their Co-pay).

Socialism didn’t solve the housing problem — rent controls did not work.

Socialism didn’t solve the gasoline problem — rationing did not work

Why is socialism so likely to solve the healthcare crisis?

I think it may just result in the very runaway demand and runaway price escalation that the government is trying to avoid. A single broke payer is no payer at all. N’uff said.
To Tehabwa:

Six visits a year even at $10 per visit would not be reasonable if they weren’t necessary, so you have me on that one. I was trying to teach about price elasticity and my example didn’t have the ideal choice of numbers.

On people dying and morality — Ya I don’t think we see that exactly the same way. You are more equalitarian/democratic than I am. In my little town there’s a drug addict that every six months or so gets herself into such a lethal OD that she needs a complete blood transfusion to save her life. This greatly depletes our local blood bank, we have to buy more to keep it ready for regular accident cases. She has no money. So she never pays. My morality might allow a few more like her to be snuffed out if they can’t pay. Call me an immoral guy I guess from your perspective — not so much a humanitarian as you are. This a still a capitalist nation. Cash is how we allocate goods and services. You say no one is talking “socialism”. But, maybe YOU are, right?

Jaime Lazar

Amanda_gates88 asked:


and found out that I have a 401k plan with Merill Lynch that I took 113.10 cents out of what is the penalty for taking that out of their? Also, I received my w2 from my former employer, but I also received unemployment this year do I have to wait to receive a form from unemployment to do my taxes? Also, I had a Health Savings solutions account, that saved money for me through my old job, and I closed it out received 1,906 dollars, what tax form do I need to wait for for that? Will there be an additional tax because I closed it?

Doreen Cunningham

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

Coral Shallcross

SWEETY asked:


He is not all there up stairs and he is not making the right choices for himself.He wrote so many bad checks that the bank wont let him have a checking account anymore.Now he only has a savings account.The only way he can get money out of the bank is go there.He doesnt have a legal car,it will not pass inspection.He never goes to the doctors like hes suppose to.He has health problems and we need to help him now before he kills himself.He needs someone to handle his money for him because he doesn’t know how to bugget himself.O and hes on SSI.How can my boyfriend and I become his “Trustee,Rep Payee”Neither of us want anything more to happen to him.We are on SSDI ourselves but we are doing alot better than him.Its going to be alot for us to handle but we need to help.He wont let the state help him because he doesn’t trust them.Can I also get a lawyer?It would have to be probono though. We really don’t have the money to pay for one.Thanks for any help you can give us in advance.

Jeffie Hibberd

Snuggles asked:


I have a health savings account card and i have almost 200 dollar on it that my employer has contributed. Ive never used one before, and confused by it.

What besides doctor visits can i use it for?

Can i go to walmart and purchase things like shampoo and other health items from it?

Also it says its a debit mastercard, does that mean i need a pin number for it? i never was asked to set one up? or will it just run as a credit card would??

Thanks for your help!

Natalie

The Wise One asked:


I am having a lot of problems with my daughter in law who my son married 5 years ago. I am convinced she is the reason my son is now not so quick as he used to be (before he met her and when they were married the first year) in helping out his family when there are moments of financial crisis.

My brother (my son’s Uncle) has been drinking a lot of alcohol for quite some time (he is in his mid 50′s). He’s been in jail for drugs and no longer uses, but his drinking is so severe that he cannot work. He is currently on unemployment. When he got out of jail I gave him a place to live and have required that he pays rent which he does. He drinks excessively but I cannot make him stop – he has to want to stop. There is nothing we can do as a family to get him to stop. I am not enabling him because I make him pay rent and he is the only one who will stop drinking- I can’t make him.

He has two children- one is in her 30′s and married with kids and his son is in his mid 20′s. Their Mom is no good. Their Dad (my brother) hasn’t been able to help pay for things for them because of his drinking and he is unemployed because of drinking, so I have helped them out financially. I cosigned on the daughter’s house. I have helped pay for his son’s college.

My son makes more than both of my brother’s kids. I don’t tell him straight out that he needs to contribute to his cousin’s college, but I let him know the situation so that he gets the hint. His cousin almost missed a semester of school because his dad didn’t have enough money to pay for it. I gave him money but I expect my son to help out too- just a couple hundred dollars or more.

Now my brother is very sick from liver failure. His son is almost finished with college and wants to go to law school. Because my brother’s health conditions he has massive medical bills. I am helping out with those. I expect my son to help financially with his cousin’s college and continue to give just a couple hundred dollars a year when he begins law school.

the problem is my daughter in law who is married to my son. She is upset that I am hinting to my son that he should help his cousin out with school expenses. She says that my husband now earns at his new job 20% less than he did at his other job from which he was laid off and that they have two small children who do not have a college savings account at all and that they come first.

I told my husband that I already have a college savings account for them. My daughter in law says that they should not be depending on me to finance their kids college and that because me and my husband have health problems that we might have to dip into the account I set up.

It is not my brother’s kids’ fault that their dad is not able to pay for things for them. I feel my husband has a duty to help out his cousins and that his wife is making excuses and just wants their money for them. My son’s cousins are family and my son has an obligation to them since he earns more money than they do- it is not their fault that the have financial problems.

So I think my son should help them out and when my brother dies I think he is obligated to help out with the funeral expenses too (just a few hundred dollars- why is his wife so upset over this?) because my brother is destitute. This is my son’s family.

How can I convince my daughter in law that she is out of line to object to my son’s helping out his family financially? It’s just a few hundred dollars once a year and always has been.

Harlan Zipperer

STILL standing asked:


Do you think it will be within your lifetime?
Do you think it will be passed by a Dem. or G.O.P. President, if it is ever proposed?

I bring this up because my brother was just found by the local Medicaid providers to be ineligible for Medicaid services.
Guess why – he has a car and over $1000 in his bank account!
He needs the car to go to work and school, and the money is savings for college.
Now he has to go without healthcare indefinitely.

I ask: Should these rules limiting healthcare for those who need it most be allowed under our Constitution?

Saran Caden