HSA Accounts and Looking After Yourself: Doomed Under Obama?

I was feeling curious about Health Savings Accounts this morning, so I did a bit of searching and reading about them. For those unfamiliar with these accounts, they are savings accounts that allow one to accumulate savings, tax free, for the purpose of meeting one's medical expenses. To have one, however, you have to own an eligible high deductible health insurance policy, sometimes termed a "catastrophic coverage" plan. These are high deductible plans with relatively low, affordable monthly premiums. The idea is to have one of these plans to cover big emergencies with your HSA as the source of ready-to-go funds to cover the deductible and other non-covered expenses.

I found one plan that for a male my age would run $73 per month with a $2000 annual deductible, but this plan allows for free "preventative maintenance" visits with a doctor. There are some things not covered, but nothing that really couldn't be taken care of on one's own with a little discipline and diligence, which would help to minimize the need to access the health insurance plan and the HSA account, allowing them to be there instead for real emergencies. Simple steps to perfect health and weight could (should, really) be followed to head off a number of poor health conditions, as one example. Lifestyle choices, not total medical care coverage, is the key to staying healthy.

But with The Obama promising threatening to start up a government funded health insurance plan in competition with private sector offerings, the high deductible plan/HSA model would probably fall apart. It would simply become harder and harder for private insurance to compete, unless the government plan were created with rigid income eligibility controls that cut people off from it above a relatively low income threshold. I highly doubt it will be, however, since the plans created by Democrats always seek to concentrate power within the government and never leave it in the hands of individuals; they will start the income eligibility high and ratchet it up every year until everyone gives up and joins the government plan. And if maintaining one's own insurance and a related savings account is an incentive to stay healthy and keep more money, what is a "free" government health care plan but an invitation to make bad choices, lead an unhealthy lifestyle and end up requiring more services? If people do not see the costs of their own health care, they're more likely to disregard their own health maintenance and place greater and greater strain on the system (meaning higher and higher taxes for everyone, not just "the rich," especially after they leave - wouldn't you?).

It is a lie that health care is unaffordable in the U.S. For most people, the truth is that they would rather spend the money each month on fast food, video games, cable TV, etc. The reward for this laziness and irresponsibility will be less freedom.