Health Savings Account-Health Savings Account Info

The MobFather asked:


Health law may end job-based coverage

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101024/ap_on_bi_ge/us_employer_health_plans

The new health care law wasn’t supposed to undercut employer plans that have provided most people in the U.S. with coverage for generations.

But last week a leading manufacturer told workers their costs will jump partly because of the law. Also, a Democratic governor laid out a scheme for employers to get out of health care by shifting workers into taxpayer-subsidized insurance markets that open in 2014.

Tennessee Gov. Bredesen (Democrat) said last week that employers could save big money by dropping their health plans and sending workers to buy coverage in the exchange. They’d face a fine of $2,000 per worker, but that’s still way less than the cost of providing health insurance. Employers could even afford to give workers a raise and still come out ahead, Bredesen wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

The above is from YAHOO..

****Same Story from Same reporter.. This was LEFT OUT on Yahoo.. but included at the FOX News Site !****

“I don’t think you are going to hear anybody publicly say ‘We’ve made a decision to drop insurance,’ ” said Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. “What we are hearing in our meetings is, ‘We don’t want to be the first one to drop benefits, but we would be the fast second.’ We are hearing that a lot.” Deloitte is a major accounting and consulting firm.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/24/companies-examine-health-care-laws-effect-employee-coverage/?test=latestnews

FFFFUUUUU Are you capable or reading?

Lana Bachmann

SwimGuy asked:


I’m still NOT over it!!!!

Yahoo Mail came out in 1997 when I was in highschool. My account got to be 10 years old. On that account I had saved many special e-mails from highschool and college. I had saved special pictures of friends from highschool and college. I had a whole bunch of Word files saved of essays I wrote over the years. My life was practically on that account.

Then one day, stupid Yahoo Answers came on-line. I asked one question about my male organs on the Men’s Health category. And, next thing I know, my 10-year-old account is GONE.

10 YEARS of memories, pictures, special letters and essays, GONE.

I see people ask the nastiest things, and never get their account suspended.

Apparently, I’m not the only one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo_answers#Criticism

According to Wikipedia, others got suspended the account they had for years for a question on Yahoo Answers.

Will Yahoo ever apologize for this?

Ermelinda Emo

Friar Timothy asked:


Would this work….if everyone in the medical profession were placed in a “Health Service Corps” and were given ranks and rates like in the military. If they got paid the same as military medical officers and enlisted do. I think it would do away with all the medical insurance companies and HMO’s. (which would save everyone money). Sure a doctor would make enuff money to drive Lincolns and Caddies but maybe not Bugatti’s or Lamborghini’s. Instead of people and businesses paying for medical insurance and HMO’s we could take say 3-4% of a persons pay and it would go into the medical Health Service Corps accounts…..none would be taken for HMO’s or insurance companies (and their over paid CEO’s)…..

Might it work ?

Trinidad Seamen

I love yanking your chain asked:


Would this be so bad? This is only an excerpt from a first-hand account with insurance in France. It makes sense.

“How good is the French medical care? Surveys by the World Health Organization rate the French system as the best in the world, and far better than average health care in the United States. Life expectancy and most other relevant rankings are also higher in France than in the United States.

From our own experience, we would agree that French medicine is much better and far cheaper than in the United States. When we lived in Florida, my very expensive heart specialist seemed content for me to have a bit of high blood pressure, which he saw as natural for a person of my age. Not so here in France, where the doctors kept changing my pills until they got me down to the normal 120 over 80. The French doctors also found a way to end a long-standing enlargement of my heart that never bothered my American doctors.

To be fair, not all doctors here are as good as the ones who’ve treated us, and we’ve heard the same kind of horror stories we heard in the States about doctors who buried their mistakes. We also hear threats to cut back funding, which is already far less per head than spending on medical care in the United States. But, so far, we’ve gotten the best of care, as do all our neighbors, including workmen, farmers and retirees on limited budgets.

Why, then, can’t Americans have the same kind of socialized medicine? Mostly, because of the health maintenance organizations and insurance companies, who take such a big slice off the top. So strong is their influence that almost no one of any clout in American politics dares to talk of a single-payer system that would simply do away with private medical insurance, except perhaps as the kind of top-up they have here.

Hopefully, if enough Americans get to know what exists here in France, the debate will open up. Something like the French system would certainly save Americans a great deal of money and provide much better care.

But, for Anna and me, it’s already too late. We’ve become so enslaved by the great medical care we now have that we cannot see ever moving back to the United States or anywhere else. That, I suppose, is the true horror of socialized medicine that all those Florida doctors warned about back in the 1940s.”

http://www.truthout.org/112108A

Allyson Burrough

Slaol asked:


Sorry about the length… I promise it is worth the read!

***********************************************
Besides paying some of the highest prices for health care, we have the dubious distinction of having the most heavily regulated healthcare system in the world. In no other country on earth are doctors and hospitals subjected to as many oversight and enforcement agencies, bureaus and commissions. Rules, regulations, and laws are duplicated, redundant, multiplied, magnified, and contradictory. Laws and regulations covering doctors and hospitals plus all the other parts of our healthcare system now account for over half of all the words, sentences, and paragraphs in our entire body of law.

If regulations could make a healthcare system work better, ours would surely be perfect. In fact, the opposite has occurred. Even those who believe that only government regulation can assure quality health care should face this fact. More laws and regulations are not going to fix our system. If we are truly concerned about the high cost of health care, if we really desire greater safety and higher quality, then we must undertake a dispassionate analysis of the current mess. If we wish to begin effective treatment of our healthcare system, we must first make an accurate diagnosis….

We have to go very far back to the first meeting of what would become the American Medical Association. This meeting was held in New York City in 1846. Twenty-nine allopathic doctors (MDs) attended the meeting. They wanted to establish a monopoly over health care in the United States for those doctors that practiced higher quality medicine, such as themselves. They felt there were too many different kinds of doctors practicing too many questionable forms of medicine. They wanted only doctors that conformed to their brand of medicine to be allowed to practice. They wished to set up their association as a medical elite and obtain a government-enforced monopoly over health care in the United States.

The following year the AMA was officially launched. Members’ efforts were at first slow to yield results. One of their first successes was in getting the exclusive right to positions in the federal government. Then, around 1870, the AMA began to find success at setting up medical boards in each state…

Soon after the medical monopoly was formed it began to push its agenda of destroying all competition. A well organized and funded nationwide purge of all non-MDs was undertaken. Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century this medical monopoly managed to shut down over forty medical schools. Their idea was to keep the number of doctors low in order to keep fees up. After WW II the medical monopoly started rigidly controlling how many of each medical specialty it would allow to be trained. So ophthalmologists, orthopedists, dermatologists, obstetricians, and others began to be in short supply. And of course when supplies are low, fees are high. The medical monopoly also managed to outlaw or marginalize over seventy healthcare professions. Protection of the healthcare consumer was, as always, the rationale for this power grab.

Whether the object of destruction by the medical monopoly be homeopaths, midwives, chiropractors, or internet prescribers, the purge is conducted in the same manner. No scientific proof or research data is offered to discredit these practitioners. The entire approach is one of character assassination directed at their profession.

On one occasion the medical monopoly did try to behave “scientifically,” but this approach backfired: They tried to show that obstetricians achieved a lower infant mortality rate than did midwives, but when the data was compiled it showed the reverse was true—midwives had the better record. The medical monopoly quickly abandoned this approach and returned to their proven method of buying lawmakers and writing nasty unsubstantiated accusations in their journals. It seems the public always falls for propaganda that promises greater consumer safety…

We should strongly consider abolishing state medical boards. Do we really need an additional and separate secret police for doctors? If we elect to keep the state medical board system, then governors should not be allowed to appoint doctors to medical boards or pharmacists to boards of pharmacy. This is like putting the foxes in charge of henhouse security! If these are supposed to be consumer protection agencies, then staff them with consumers. The ideal board member is the owner-operator of a small business. Such boards could consult anyone they wish for technical or professional advice.

I am sure that the Federal Trade Commission has looked at this, probably more than once. The legal problem is that the AMA does not directly intervene in the marketplace. The medical monopoly is cleverly divided up into numerous components with legal separations that make it nearly impossible to mount an effective antitrust case. Th
The AMA makes sure that it stays at arms length from the state medical boards and even has the Federation of State Medical Boards in between. The communication, cooperation, and even conspiratorial planning between the components of the medical monopoly are unquestionable, but such contact is always couched in terms of protecting the public.

If, however, the state medical board system were abolished, or disempowered, the medical monopoly would suffer a fatal blow. Cut off the small head of a giant rattlesnake and the huge body of the snake is rendered harmless. The beneficial effect of such action to healthcare consumers, American workers, and the economy would be enormous and immediate. Less appreciated would be an even more important effect: The breakup of the medical monopoly would go a long way toward taking American medicine out of its current political orientation and back into its proper scientific orientation.

http://mises.org/story/1749

I can’t even imagine how far “innovative doctors” could lower prices for their patients if they were only allowed to do so.
I am in Medical School and would love to see the changes made to the system that the article above speaks of.

Kirk Bhairo

Gurelei asked:


My employer offers a HD medical insurance with $3000 deductible for a family. If I sign up, is this all that I need to qualify for an HSA? Is there a chance that my contributions are disallowed later on for some reason?

thank you

Alaine Mangum

Steve asked:


I mean seriously! The bill extends health benefits to heros who saved lives during 9/11! Republicans shot it down!

Reason number 1: Because it taxes US companies with OFF-SHORE accounts!
Reason number 2: Because it gives benefits to possible illegal-aliens

First of all, who gives a s#$% if HP gets their US Virgin islands account taxed? Then, if Jose saved you from a building but wasn’t a citizen, does that mean he gets nothing?!

You all make me sick at this point. Stop being as$holes and just disagreeing with democrats for the hell of it! ENOUGH!

Sherie Ollie

pea in a pod asked:


I am 20 years old and I just lost Medicaid under my parents, and my income is too high for it. I earn $1,080 a month.

I have $650 a month in expenses and live on my own. I am about to purchase Blue Cross Blue Shield for individual plans with a high deductible. I try to stay really healthy, eat healthy, but I have chiropractic service needs, 3 bulging discs, and a scoliosis that isn’t moving anymore in my lower spine. I’d rather save in a HSA to pay high for a medical emergency than keep paying a high premium monthly.

I need something with dental, vision, chiropractic, and health. I found out my Medicaid got canceled after I ended up in the ER for stomach problems over the weekend and now have high bills. What do you think?

Penni Hawking

raynics82 asked:


Recently my employer got even cheaper and decided to dump united health care in favor of Aetna. Of course, not caring that Aetna doesn’t cover squat for employees, it saves them on the premiums monthly. However, my weekly 50 payment remains the same, and now a monthly prescription United covered 34 dollars a month on, Aetna now covers 3 bucks on! I am very healthy and have never had Health insurance until I moved to Taxachusetts. Now taking roughly 50 a week, and only saving me 3 dollars a month doesn’t make a lot of sense. So I’m pretty much handing over 2600 bucks a year, and in turn saving 36 dollars a year. Thank You Mass! I’m thinking of dumping my health insurance and paying the fine of 912 during tax season. I’ll just take the 50 a week and put it in my own seperate personal Health account. In my eyes, it saves me 1688 a year, and that is money back. Not lining the pockets of these insurance giants. If something bad were to happen to me, I could just get a loan to pay off the bills, unless i had enough saved in the seperate account itself to pay it off by then. It appears to me that is a win win. Is it a smart move? or is there another option? Health insurance companies are such a scam, and the gov’t is helping in mass. Forced customers.

Travis Howry

G B asked:


I got married around 7 months back. I have been going through heavy mental stress since my marriage. I work in corporate. My wife too works in reputed company. Ours is arranged marriage. Before marriage my wife used to talk nicely everybody in my family, now after marriage she does not want any of my close relative in our life. My parents live in separate house and they want us to live our life and do not want to interfere. They are now scared of this lady. In spite of this my wife cribs about them. I have been very close to my family since my childhood and she does not like that and often fights on these issues. She is extreme high fashion lady and I’ve been paying for all her expenses. She does not want to share a single rupee in our house. She does not even want to spend for her daily expenses which occur in canteen, her parties etc. I’ve been paying for her saving bonds etc, paying all household bills. Has “Spend his and Save mine attitude”. She loves to talk to her own relatives for hours. I have been paying for her phone bills. Most of my salary goes in paying EMIs for my house which I had bought before marriage. After buying house I am hardly left with any money at the middle of month. She monitors my salary statements closely. Asks many questions why I got less sal this month etc. She still expects I should buy her gifts etc. Because of my financial condition I try to avoid unwanted expenses, she often starts arguing on this issue. She does not wish to contribute not even in a single bill. All our plannings, commitments she made went up in smoke. She tells me her own ideas of saving money in her account. I feel like completely broken, mentally, financially. Not able to keep good health because of stress. Please suggest how I can improve my situation.

Thanks

Beau Durkin