I disagree with HSA being a retirement plan, but yes, they give the person more control, something for the long term. There are some tax advantages to building it as retirement savings that streamers like to focus on, but that really should be a second priority to covering a lifetime of healthcare
Last time looked closely, the tradeoff in my company was that for an identical cost for me, I could choose
Traditional ppo with low copays and deductibles
High deductible health plan (HDHP) plus HSA to fully cover the annual deductible
That made it very compelling: the coverage should almost always be equal for equal cost. But unusually we don’t need that much medical care so I’d have something left over to help pay for next year. If we were able to start with just a couple healthy years, it would really make a difference in health costs. If you started young, it’s true that you build up a lot of savings for retirement, but it would only take a few healthy years at any age to cover, say a major operation (always in conjunction with HDHP). Or I don’t know if you could use it for COBRA if between jobs, but if you had enough you could cover even uninsured healthcare. The trick of course is how do you keep making an optional contribution when money is tight?
I disagree with HSA being a retirement plan, but yes, they give the person more control, something for the long term. There are some tax advantages to building it as retirement savings that streamers like to focus on, but that really should be a second priority to covering a lifetime of healthcare
Last time looked closely, the tradeoff in my company was that for an identical cost for me, I could choose
That made it very compelling: the coverage should almost always be equal for equal cost. But unusually we don’t need that much medical care so I’d have something left over to help pay for next year. If we were able to start with just a couple healthy years, it would really make a difference in health costs. If you started young, it’s true that you build up a lot of savings for retirement, but it would only take a few healthy years at any age to cover, say a major operation (always in conjunction with HDHP). Or I don’t know if you could use it for COBRA if between jobs, but if you had enough you could cover even uninsured healthcare. The trick of course is how do you keep making an optional contribution when money is tight?