Health savings accounts: early estimates of national take-up.
The 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) approved tax-advantaged health savings accounts (HSAs) for certain high-deductible health insurance plans. We predict that MMA could lead to approximately 3.2 million HSA contracts among Americans ages 19-64 who are not students, not enrolled in public health insurance plans, and not eligible for group coverage as a dependent. We simulate the effect of several additional tax subsidies for HSAs. We predict that the Bush administration's refundable tax-credit proposal would double HSA take-up and reduce the number of uninsured people by 2.9 million, at an annual cost of $8.1 billion.
Feldman
Roger
R
School of Public Health, University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, USA. feldm002@umn.edu
Parente
Stephen T
ST
Abraham
Jean
J
Christianson
Jon B
JB
Taylor
Ruth
R
D000328:Adult; D003256:Community Participation; D006264:Health Benefit Plans, Employee; D006801:Humans; D020402:Medical Savings Accounts / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017057:Medically Uninsured; D006278:Medicare / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D008875:Middle Aged; D014481:United States