Information Rich Health Saving Accounts (HSA's)

Project Mission The historic health savings account (HSA) legislation that Congress passed in 2003 as part of the Medicare drug legislation is an extraordinarily important first step in the transformation of the American health and healthcare system that will ultimately save lives and money.  HSAs are a key component to consumer-driven healthcare, as it gives consumers the power to control how the money is spent, including giving them the ability to save for future expenses.

Jim Frogue Project Director

The Center made the rapid adoption of HSAs one of its top priorities in 2005 and subsequently launched a Health Savings Account Project to coordinate activities in support of this priority.

These portable accounts will allow individuals to deposit, grow, and withdraw money, all tax-free, to pay for a wide variety of qualified medical expenses, including preventive care, health insurance deductibles, health insurance premiums for retirees, prescription drugs and long-term care services. As such, HSAs, which are owned by individuals and not corporations or insurance companies, are the first completely tax-free account in American history. They will begin to transition us away from the current model in which insurance companies dominate the healthcare transaction by moving more expenses away from third party payers. Instead, HSAs enable transactions directly between doctors and patients, giving the patient much more say how care is received and paid for.

In addition, the Center believes that it is vitally important that HSAs offered by insurance companies be accompanied by information-rich decision support and health management tools that will increase the ability of individuals to make intelligent and informed choices about the spending of their health dollars. Such decision support tools include price and quality information about doctors, hospitals, prescription drugs and chronic care services. Health management tools include extensive information about specific health conditions, as well as treatment and management options. Many insurance companies already offer robust decision support and health management tools. With the introduction of information-rich HSAs, the Center believes that these tools will increase in user-friendliness and sophistication as more and more consumers with a first dollar interest in their health spending will demand more and better information about how to spend it wisely.

• Develop a report on the progress of each state in implementing information-rich HSAs.
• Develop a report on the progress of each Fortune 500 company in implementing information-rich HSAs
• Develop a report on information rich HSAs, comparing the quality of the decision support, health management, and financial management tools that are being offered by various companies in the consumer-driven health insurance market.

• Ensure that every significant insurance company in America offers an information rich HSA-qualified health insurance plan.
• Ensure that every significant financial services company in America offers a HSA financial product.
• Ensure that every state government employee has the option of choosing an information rich HSA-qualified health insurance plan.
• Ensure that every state Medicaid program can offer, where appropriate, an information rich HSA-qualified health insurance plan.
• Ensure that any individual who wishes to purchase an information rich HSA-qualified health insurance plan can do so online in a matter of minutes.
• Ensure that every employer offering health coverage to its employees can offer an information rich HSA-qualified health insurance plan.
• Ensure that Medicare offers an information rich HSA option.

If you would like to learn more about how to become a member of the Information-rich Health Savings Account (HSA) Project, please contact Jim Frogue at 202-375-2001 or info@healthtransformation.net.