Why HSA's are bad for consumers.....

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

From American Prospect.

Along with this he would have an insurance plan. The one catch: He would be responsible for the first $2,000 in costs should he become sick. But the idea was that the MSA would be there to cover this high deductible.

"So I was thinking it's going to be great for me because at least I would have something to show for my good health at the end of the year," says Johnson. As a generally healthy person, he says, he felt that traditional insurance was a waste. "I just never got anything out of that benefit." But Johnson made a bad gamble. That year, he decided to go hang gliding. "I broke my ankle," he notes ruefully. "And that pretty much ate up the funds because I had to have two operations." Because the county paid into the savings account in installments, and had only put in $400 when Johnson sought medical care, not only did he have to pay the $900 deductible employees were responsible for, he also had to front the full $2,000 deductible "right off the bat." If he had stayed in his traditional insurance plan, he would have had a $100 deductible and 20-percent co-payments for doctor services, up to an $800 limit. While both plans may have cost him about the same amount in the end (it is unclear what the co-payments would have amounted to under the traditional plan), the MSA was definitely not the boon he had hoped for.

[Josh L.Ac.]

Every plan has its limitations, and if you like to be involved in "kinetic sports/hobbies", then having a HSA without some sort of "catastrophic" insurance seems risky.

But I do like the logic behind having a HSA. The debate between different medical payment systems is an ugly one, but one reason why I prefer the HSA + catastrophic insurance scenario is because it seems less likely to subsidize other people's poor health choices.