title: The role of employee flexible spending accounts in health care financing.
abstract: Employee flexible spending accounts for health care represent one component of the current health care financing system that merits serious reform. These accounts create a system of undesirable incentives, force employees and employers to take complicated gambles, reduce tax revenues, and fail to meet their purported policy objectives. This paper describes shortcomings in these accounts from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. Some proposed alternatives; including medical spending accounts and zero balance accounts, resolve many of these concerns but not all of them.
authors.affiliation: Department of Management, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33129, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schweitzer
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Asch
mesh_terms: D000066:Accounting; D003363:Cost Control; D017047:Cost Sharing; D004649:Employee Incentive Plans / Q000191:economics; D005382:Financing, Personal / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006264:Health Benefit Plans, Employee / Q000191:economics*; D018166:Health Care Reform; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006801:Humans; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D013660:Taxes; D014481:United States