Your Questions About Hsa Health Insurance Plans

Travis Bunker answers:

With an HMO:

1. You have to choose a primary care physician (PCP).
2. You must go to your PCP for everything (you cannot choose to go see another Dr. Without a referral from your PCP).
3. There is no out of network coverage.

With a PPO:

1. You do not need to choose a PCP – you can go to any Dr. You like, general care or specialist, directly at any time you like without a referral from anyone.
2. Coverage is cheaper in-network than out of network but you can go to any Dr. Or hospital you want without having to worry about what is and isnt covered.

With an HSA:

1. HSA’s (Health Savings Accounts) are types of health insurance plans.
2. There are 2 components: the insurance component and the savings account component.
3. The insurance component is a high deductible health insurance plan.
4. The savings account component gives you an above the line tax deduction for all money contributed into the account (up to IRS limits), the money grows tax free in the account, and the money comes out tax free as long as you use the money for qualifed medical expenses (or are over the age of 65).

Here are 3 articles with more details (Article #1 is on HMO’s, Article #2 is on PPO’s, and Article #3 is on HSA’s):

http://www.healthquote360.com/Health_Insurance_Plans/HMO_Health_Insurance_Plans.php

http://www.healthquote360.com/Health_Insurance_Plans/PPO_Health_Insurance_Plans.php

http://www.healthquote360.com/Health_Insurance_Plans/Health_Savings_Accounts.php

Travis Bunker answers:

The HSA (health savings account) would do you great deal of good! Especially with kids. What the HSA does is take a certain dollar amount out of your check before taxes. It puts it into basically a savings account. You then use this money for things like co-pays, medicine, if you need anything to do with the medical world it can be paid from this account. If your employer is offering these plans, get on their health insurance program. And do the HSA, it will be great because then you have your medical money already set aside when the kids get sick!

YES YES YES start the 401k as well! This is freeeeeeee money from your employer! If you want a 3% (on average) raise per year, get the 401k! Not only will it give you money from your employer now, it will grow to amazing amounts as long as you keep it going!

Travis Bunker answers:

Sounds like you have it figured out, not only pay for yourself but those (over) 45 million people that don’t have a health care too.
All this and cutting 95% of people taxes, Raising corporate taxes, which will stifle job growth,
I like the part where it says -force insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care instead of keeping exorbitant amounts for profits.
Sounds like Nationalizing the Insurance Co.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will guarantee affordable, accessible health care coverage for all Americans– How?

No where in this plan dose it say where all this money will come from. Health Care for patients with diabetes costs $130 billion each year alone and its on the rise.

I know the down checks will be plenty, people that haven’t read the plan. Or understand the things that it doesn’t say.

Travis Bunker answers:

No.

The company insurance coordinator is correct.

The insurance company is wrong.

It is illegal to contribute to an HSA if you have a health plan that is not an HDHP. In other words, for you to be allowed to contribute to an HSA, all of your health plans need to be HDHP’s. (There are a few exceptions, such as dental plans, vision plans, and long-term care plans.) If you have a traditional plan, then you cannot contribute to an HSA.

This is not the company’s rule. This is the federal government’s rule. And the insurance company should have known this.

Travis Bunker answers:

Hello.

Deductible is the amount of money you must pay first before your plan benefits begin to pay. Many plans will waive a deductible if you are only using “routine” benefits, but you need to confirm this with the insurance company.

Numbers 2 and 3 almost go together. Your plan will pay a certain percentage of agreed payment with the medical doctor or other provider you use. Some plans say 80% – 20%, some say 90% – 10%, etc. Once you confirm what your percentage of responsibility will be, the out-of-pocket maximum will tell you what total 20% or 10% you must pay. It may be low, say $500.00 or it could be higher. A typical figure may be $1500.00, but your plan could be more or less. When you spend whatever amount your limit is, then your plan will become 100%.

If your plan truly has a $5,000.00 lifetime maximum, that is a terrible plan indeed. You should check to make sure it doesn’t say $5,000,000.00 (Five Million). There are some employers out there though that would do this kind of thing to their employees so you will just have to confirm if it’s true.

HSA. The HSA may or may not help you. An HSA allows you to deduct your contributions to it from your income tax or contribute pre-tax dollars from your paycheck if your employer has what’s commonly called a “cafeteria plan” or an IRS 125 plan that offers a choice of benefits. You may also add in a contribution from your employer, and have your spouse or even your Uncle contribute too. Money from family members can be contributed. The IRS limits the total amount you can contribute. Your employer can tell you what the limits are, but my guess is, if your employer really has a 5K limit on your healthplan, the HSA probably ain’t much better.

Your HSA money earns tax-free interest and is available to you whenever you need it. You can also take the account with you if you change jobs, and the balance can keep growing for as long as you like.

There is no rule that says you have to spend the money on just health care expenses, but if you spend the money on “non-qualified” expenses, you will be taxed, and there may be added penalties.