Private Insurance: Bad Ideas
Resource Centers on Bad Ideas:
President Bush's Health Care Tax Deduction Proposal
In his 2007 State of the Union Address, President Bush proposed a new tax deduction for people who purchase health insurance in the individual, private insurance market. Unfortunately, this proposal is unlikely to help those who most need health coverage. This resource center pulls together information from Families USA and several other organizations.
The Enzi Bill: Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization Act (HIMMA) In 2006, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved legislation, introduced by Senator Michael Enzi of Wyoming, that would override consumer protections enacted by the states to protect health insurance consumers. This resource center includes letters of opposition and fact sheets from insurance commissioners, as well as several national organizations. These materials highlight some of the problems that would result if this kind of legislation were to be enacted.
HSAs:Shop While You Drop? Endorsed by President Bush, Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are being promoted as a way to help the uninsured and, at the same time, bring down health care costs. But consumer advocates argue that HSAs will do neither. Check out this resource center, which pulls together the latest information on a bad idea.
From Families USA:
Senate Amendment on Wellness Program Surcharges Jeopardizes Access to Affordable Coverage and Care describes the concerns with an amendment under consideration in the Senate health reform bill that would allow employers and insurers to charge heath insurance enrollees larger surcharges for failing to meet "wellness" plan goals than are currently allowed. (October 2009)
CoverTN, Tennessee's Barebones Health Plan: A Case Study uses Tennessee's barebones health plan as an example to examine how limited-benefit plans fail to meet the health coverage needs of consumers. (May 2009)
Limited-Benefit Plans: Expanding Coverage or Holding Your State Back? examines the negative effects of limited-benefit insurance plans (also known as "barebones" or "mandate-lite" plans) based on how these plans have fared in some states. This brief also discusses how advocates can respond to limited-benefit proposals in their states. (October 2008)
Empty Promise: Searching for Health Insurance in an Unfair Market discusses how the individual health insurance market differs from the employer market and examines what happens to consumers who seek coverage in the individual market. Problems in the individual market include policies that don't provide quality coverage; policies that are very expensive or that cost more than advertised; and the fact that many applicants cannot obtain a policy at any price. (August 2008)
Six Reasons to Be Wary of High-Deductible HSA Plans (December 2006)
Stop Bad Ideas—How HSAs Can Drain Your Wallet and Harm Your Health presents three examples that illustrate what can happen to employees working for a hypothetical company that purchases a high-deductible health plan. (December 2006)
Stop Bad Ideas—HSAs: Missing the Target examines the effects that HSAs will have on those without health insurance and on the health care system overall. (November 2006)
H.R. 2355, The Health Care Choice Act: The Wrong Prescription for America's Health Care Needs discusses how this legislation, sponsored by Rep. Shadegg and favored by the Administration, would undermine state laws designed to protect health care consumers. (August 2006)
Testimony by Ron Pollack, Executive Director, Families USA, before the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Health Insurance and Managed Care Committee, discusses state insurance reforms that will help consumers and those that won't. (June 12, 2006)
The Enzi Bill: Bad Medicine for America summarizes the flaws in this legislation and provides state-by-state listings of consumer protections that will be lost and the numbers of people affected if the Enzi bill is enacted. (May 2006) Press Release
Summary of S. 1955: The Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization Act outlines the legislation that introduces Small Business Health Plans (SBHPs) and exempts private insurers from many state laws and regulations governing health insurance. 5 pp. (March 23, 2006)
Statement: Bill that Overrides State Laws that Protect Health Care Consumers Passes in Senate Committee (March 15, 2006)
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has approved legislation that will override consumer protections enacted by the states to protect health insurance consumers. The Enzi Bill: Bad Medicine for America highlights some of the problems that will result if this legislation, sponsored by Senator Michael Enzi of Wyoming, is enacted. (March 15, 2006)
Statement: Enzi Bill Puts 85 Million People at Risk of Losing Critical Health Insurance Protections (March 7, 2006)
President Bush's Fiscal Year 2007 Budget: Analysis of Key Health Care Provisions Includes discussion and commentary on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), Medicaid, and Medicare. (February 22, 2006)
Statement: President's Proposal Would Make Health Care Less, Not More, Affordable (February 15, 2006)
Statement: President's Health Care Message Is Most Notable for What Was NOT Said (February 1, 2006)
Stop Bad Ideas—AHPs: Bad Medicine for Small Employers Association Health Plans (AHPs) are a major part of the President's package of health care proposals aimed at reducing the growing number of uninsured Americans. This fact sheet finds that AHPs are not a solution for the number of uninsured, are not an effective way to control costs, and provide fertile ground for fraud and abuse. (December 2005)
Stop Bad Ideas—HSAs: Missing the Target This fact sheet examines the effects that health savings accounts (HSAs) will have on the uninsured and on the health care system overall. It finds that HSAs won't reduce the number of uninsured, are not an effective way to control costs, are inequitable, and are a radical threat to our current health insurance system. (December 2005)
Stop Bad Ideas—Too Little, Too Late: Why a $1,000 Tax Credit Won’t Help the Uninsured Every year since 2001, President Bush has proposed a $1,000 tax credit to help uninsured people purchase health insurance in the individual market. This fact sheet finds that his tax credit is justified by questionable studies, is tied to the flawed individual market, and wouldn't make insurance affordable. (December 2005)
The Health Care Choice Act (H.R. 2355), which was introduced by Rep. Shadegg (R-AZ), would undermine critical consumer protections and make it harder for many consumers to obtain health care. Like the Association Health Plan (AHP) proposal that has been before Congress for many years, the Health Care Choice Act would allow insurance companies to offer individual health insurance policies in states with the fewest consumer protections and to market and sell those policies to consumers in all 50 states. On June 28, 2005, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on this bill, and Families USA submitted written testimony. | Press Release (June 28, 2005)
Families USA and 34 groups author comments to maintain consumer protections. Federal agencies asked for comments on "benefit-specific waiting periods," a way that employers and insurance companies can make insured workers wait months and even years before they can access critical treatments. Federal consumer protections under HIPAA limit the ability of health plans to exclude coverage for preexisting condition so that plans cannot deny treatments to specific workers with health conditions. Our comments ask the federal agencies to prohibit benefit-specific waiting periods and close the loophole. (March 30, 2005)
Have health insurance? Think you're well protected? Think Again! This one-page fact sheet provides quick stats on how health care expenses overwhelm even insured working families, forcing many into bankruptcy. (February 2005)
The Administration has put forth several proposals, including Association Health Plans (AHPs), designed to expand health coverage to the uninsured. How Will Association Health Plans Affect Minority Health? Separating Fact from Fiction analyzes the real impact that AHPs will have on the health care access of uninsured racial and ethnic minorities. (February 2005)
HSAs: Why High-Deductible Plans Are Not the Solution: This fact sheet examines the effects that health savings accounts (HSAs) will have on those without health insurance and on the health care system overall. (January 2005)
Health Care: Are you better off today than you were four years ago?Health care has emerged as one of the top concerns of Americans in recent years. To understand what forces are driving this change, Families USA posed a variation of a question raised by Ronald Reagan more than two decades ago: When it comes to health care, are we better off today than we were four years ago? The results of our analysis show that the answer is a clear no. (September 2004)
United States Supreme Court Holds that Patients Enrolled in Employer-Sponsored Health Plans Cannot Sue Their Managed Care Companies for Damages. Families USA Statement | Opinion | Summary 1 | Summary 2 | Amicus Brief. (June 21, 2004)
The Illusion of Group Health Insurance: Discretionary Associations Discretionary associations enable insurance carriers to market individual health insurance policies under the guise of group insurance to consumers seeking low-cost insurance that appears to offer group protections. This Issue Brief identifies problems in the discretionary association marketplace and suggests a number of regulatory and legislative solutions. 18 pp. $3.00 (March 2004)
Families USA Files Amicus Brief in Critical Patients' Rights Case to be Decided by the United States Supreme Court: The United States Supreme Court will soon settle the critical question of whether a patient has the right to sue her managed care company. Families USA and 14 other consumer, disease, and disability groups have filed an Amicus Brief with the Supreme Court in support of a patient's right to sue her managed care company. If this case is successful, many other states are expected to adopt right-to-sue laws that would protect the ability of patients to hold their managed care plans accountable for the medical decisions they make. To read more about this case, click here. To go directly to the Amicus Brief, click here. (January 2004)
What's Wrong with Tax-Free Savings Accounts for Health Care? Tax-free personal savings accounts for health care have become the latest cure-all for the problems facing our health care system. This Issue Brief uses a hypothetical company to examine how such accounts undermine the pooling of risk—the basis for insurance. 6 pp. Free (November 2003)
Tax-Free Savings Accounts for Medical Expenses: A Tax Cut Masquerading as Help to the Uninsured This Issue Brief discusses Health Savings Accounts and Health Savings Security Accounts, two kinds of personal savings accounts that were created by a bill attached to the House Republican Medicare prescription drug legislation. (July 2003)
Statement: Association Health Plans Will Cause More Harm Than Help to Health Care Consumers (June 10, 2003)
Protecting Consumers from Unfair Rate Hikes: The Need for Regulation of Health Insurance Renewal Premium Increases This Issue Brief examines the insurance industry practice of re-underwriting at renewal and discusses current efforts to regulate the practice at the federal and state levels. (February 2003)
Health Action In Depth: Some Employers Turn to Troubling New Insurance Plans This article from our newsletter Health Action discusses the emergence of Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) plans, which some employers are touting as a way to contain health costs. However, these plans are more likely to simply shift costs to employees They also threaten to further segment the health insurance market; place far greater burdens on those who require more medical care, such as seniors and those with chronic or serious illnesses; and lead to health care rationing. (January 2003)
More than 725,000 Laid-off Workers Have Lost Health Coverage Since the Recession Began in March,
A Special Report. (December 2001)
Healthy Pay for Health Plan Executives The managed care industry claims that the cost of patients' rights legislation will make families lose health insurance coverage--a charge that is both misleading and self-serving. This report examines the compensation for the highest-paid executives of 10 for-profit, publicly traded companies that own health plans serving multiple states. A Special Report. (June 2001)
Hit and Miss: State Managed Care Laws This report surveys state legislation addressing common problems with managed care. It analyzes state-by-state activity on 13 illustrative consumer protections and finds that many Americans are left unprotected. The spottiness of state consumer protections is compounded by ERISA, which preempts state laws for those in "self-insured" plans--one out of three people with employer-provided coverage. (July 1998)
Premium Pay: Corporate Compensation in America's HMOs examines the 1996 costs of compensation for top-level executives of some of the nation's most profitable HMOs. (April 1998)
HMO Consumers at Risk: States to the Rescue (Print only) An overview of 14 key HMO consumer protection issues addressed by a number of states through legislation or regulation during 1995 and the first half of 1996. (July 1996)
Skyrocketing Health Inflation 1980-1993-2000: The Burden on Families and Businesses (Print only) A analysis of health care spending of American families and businesses, nationally and state-by-state. Also includes data on sources of payment by families and businesses. (November 1993)
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From the BlueCross BlueShield Association:
Association Health Plans: No State Regulation Means Loss of Protections for Consumers, Small Employers and Providers examines the impact of Association Health Plans (AHPs). The report states that AHPs will do little to cover the uninsured and will allow insurers to drop coverage for certain medical services. Released with patient groups such as the American Diabetes Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. (May 2005)
From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
Many health and tax policy analysts suspected that Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) would be used as tax shelters for high-incomes individuals. GAO Study Confirms Health Savings Accounts Primarily Benefit High-Income Individuals indicates that HSAs are disproportionately used by affluent individuals. The report also explains how HSAs and high-deductible plans reduce costs for healthy people while increasing out-of-pocket costs for less healthy people. (September 2006)
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are accounts in which individuals who have high-deductible health insurance can save money to pay for out-of-pocket health expenses. The Bush Administration has touted HSAs as a solution to covering the uninsured. A Brief Overview of the Major Flaws With Health Savings Accounts explains why HSAs might not be such a good idea after all. (April 2006)
Debate continues over Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), though many leading health care analysts and economists have warned that HSAs pose a high risk of causing "adverse selection." Adverse selection occurs when healthy people and less-healthy people separate into different insurance arrangements, which drives up the cost of insurance for less-healthy enrollees. Initial Data on Individual Market Enrollment Fail to Dispel Concerns about Health Savings Accounts considers new data, which the authors conclude do not support the claims of HSA proponents. (September 13, 2004)
From the Center for Studying Health System Change:
More Americans Willing to Limit Physician-Hospital Choice for Lower Medical Costs With health care costs on the rise, more Americans are now willing to accept health plans with limited choice of providers and hospitals in exchange for lower out-of-pocket costs. Between 2001 and 2003, the percentage of working-age Americans willing to trade provider choice for lower costs rose from 55 to 59 percent. (March 2005)
Rising Health Costs, Medical Debt and Chronic Conditions About 57 million working-age Americans (18-64 years old) live with chronic conditions such as diabetes or depression. In 2003, more than one in five—12.3 million people with chronic conditions—lived in families that had problems paying their medical bills. Rising health costs have hit low-income, privately insured people with chronic conditions particularly hard: Between 2001 and 2003, the proportion of such people who spent more than 5 percent of their income on out-of-pocket health care costs grew from 28 percent to 42 percent. (September 2004)
Primary Care Doctors Who Treat Blacks and Whites provides new insight into possible explanations for the pervasive health disparities between African Americans and whites. According to the study's lead author, "The findings paint a picture of two health systems, where physicians treating black patients appear to have less access to important clinical resources and be less well trained clinically than physicians treating white patients." (A subscription to The New England Journal of Medicine is required to read the full article.) (August 2004)
Rhetoric vs. Reality: Employer Views on Consumer-Driven Health Care This study, which looks at employer views on consumer-driven health plans in 12 metropolitan areas, finds that employers know more today than in the past about consumer-driven health care plans and that increased knowledge is raising questions about the effectiveness of such plans. In addition, it reports that employers are unsure that cost savings will result from consumer-driven care, have concerns about the ability of employees to access the information necessary to make decisions in a consumer-driven system, and are wary of the ability of tiered provider networks to provide sufficient access to quality health care services. (July 2004)
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From The Commonwealth Fund:
The Continuing Cost of Privatization: Extra Payments to Medicare Advantage Plans in 2008 considers the policies of the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) that have spurred greater enrollment in private plans and that have substantially increased Medicare costs. Private health plans serving Medicare beneficiaries will be paid an average of 12.4 percent more per enrollee in 2008 compared to what the same enrollee would have cost in the traditional Medicare fee-for-service program. (September 2008)
Health savings accounts (HSAs) and high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) have been promoted by the Administration as part of the solution for the problems facing the U.S. health care system. Health Savings Accounts: Why They Won’t Cure What Ails U.S. Health Care presents expert testimony that encouraging Americans to join HSAs will only exacerbate the nation’s health care woes. Current evidence shows that HSAs suffer from low enrollment, low satisfaction, high out-of-pocket costs, and cost-related access problems. (June 2006)
Americans enrolled in "consumer-directed" health plans—a relatively new type of health coverage that is purportedly designed to make people more cost-conscious—are less satisfied with their coverage than those with comprehensive health insurance, according to Early Experience with High-Deductive and Consumer-Driven Health Plans: Findings from the EBRI/Commonwealth Fund Consumerism in Health Care Survey. The survey also found that those enrolled in consumer-directed plans are more likely to pay high out-of-pocket costs and receive little or no information about their health care. (December 2005)
The Effect of Health Savings Accounts on Health Insurance Coverage concludes that HSAs are not likely to be an important contributor to expanding coverage among uninsured people because most of them do not face high enough marginal tax rates to benefit substantially from the tax deductibility of HSA contributions. Meanwhile, HSAs could potentially destabilize the small-group market. To the extent that they encourage well-compensated healthy workers to abandon job-based coverage, HSAs could undermine the entire structure of job-based coverage among small firms. (April 2005)
How High Is Too High? Implications of High-Deductible Health Plans finds that high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) are unlikely to have a substantial effect on either costs or coverage and can undermine the basic purposes of health insurance -- to reduce financial barriers to needed care and protect against financial hardship. The authors suggest legislative modifications to protect lower-wage adults and ensure access to early preventive and primary care. (April 2005)
Millions of workers do not receive health benefits from their employers, and few sources of affordable coverage exist outside the employer-based system. Wages, Health Benefits, and Workers' Health found a deep divide in the U.S. labor force and an urgent need for expanding access to comprehensive and affordable coverage to workers and their families. (October 2004)
The U.S. is experiencing an unprecedented influx of unauthorized insurers selling phony health insurance. Regulators believe this problem will only grow as premiums continue to increase at double-digit rates and people continue looking for affordable alternatives. Health Insurance Scams: How Government is Responding and What Further Steps Are Needed highlights state and federal strategies that have been successful at identifying and closing unauthorized health plans, as well as methods of preventing their proliferation. (August 2003)
From Consumer Reports:
On Their Own: Far from a Remedy, Individual Health Insurance Is a World of Pain details an investigation of individual health insurance and found that regulation of this market varies from state to state. Expenses normally run higher than insurance available through an employer. The investigation also found that 76 percent of uninsured adults said that they could not afford individual insurance.
(January 2008)
From the Economic Policy Institute:
The persistently weak labor market, together with sharply increasing health care costs, have led to a related problem for working families -- the loss of employer-provided health coverage. The Chronic Problem of Declining Health Coverage: Employer-Provided Health Insurance Falls for Third Consecutive Year examines the erosion of employer-based coverage since 2000, with an emphasis on the characteristics—gender, race, education, and wage and income levels—of those who have lost coverage. (September 16, 2004)
From the Employee Benefit Research Institute and The Commonwealth Fund
The 2nd Annual EBRI-Commonwealth Fund Consumerism in Health Care Survey finds that enrollment in consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) and high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) is virtually unchanged since 2005. These plans are making little headway in reducing the number of uninsured, and they are still plagued by low levels of satisfaction and high out-of-pocket costs that deter beneficiaries from seeking care. (December 2006)
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From the Government Accountability Office:
Health Savings Accounts: Participation Grew, and Many HAS-Eligible Plan Enrollees Did Not Open HSAs while Individuals Who Did Had Higher Incomes found that the number of individuals participating in HSA-eligible, high-deductible health plans and HSAs has risen significantly since 2004. Adjusted gross income for HSA enrollees in 2005 was about $139,000, compared to $57,000 for other taxpayers. However, many HSA-eligible plan enrollees did not open an HSA, citing their inability to afford one or a belief that they did not need one. (May 2008)
Enrollees in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) High-Deductible Health Plans (HDHP) were younger and earned higher federal salaries than other FEHBP enrollees, according to Federal Employees Health Benefits Program: First-Year Experience with High-Deductible Health Plans and Health Savings Accounts. For example, 43 percent of HDHP enrollees employed by the federal government earned salaries of $75,000 or more, compared to 23 percent of all those enrolled in FEHBP plans. (January 2006)
From Health Affairs:
Large increases in health care costs combined with an economic slowdown have created pressures for health plans and employers to reconsider cost containment strategies that were scaled back after the managed care backlash. Managed Care Rebound? Recent Changes in Health Plans' Cost Containment Strategies examines how plans' approaches to cost containment and care management have evolved since 2001. (August 11, 2004)
From the Kaiser Family Foundation:
Moving Away from Employer-Based Coverage: Don't Forget Public Opinion reports that between 63 and 81 percent of people said that eliminating employer-based insurance and having to buy insurance on their own would make their current financial situation worse. There were no meaningful differences by party affiliation—party identification was not a good predictor of how a person answered the question. The article further discusses how the public and voters feel about undergoing such a large change. (June 2008)
The Kaiser Health Poll Report – Selected Findings on 2006 State of the Union Address and Health Care showed that the health messages in President Bush’s State of the Union address have yet to register with most Americans. For example, despite extensive news coverage before and after the speech about the President’s proposals for expanding the use of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), 71 percent of those polled said they had not heard of the term “health savings account” or did not know what the term meant. (February 2006)
From the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET):
Employer Health Benefits 2004 Annual Survey is part of an annual series of studies documenting changes in employer-sponsored health insurance, including trends in premium rates and cost-sharing mechanisms. Among its findings, the survey reports that 61 percent of all workers receive health coverage from their employer, down significantly from its peak in 2001, meaning there are at least 5 million fewer jobs that provide health insurance in 2004 than there were in 2001. (September 2004)
From KaiserEDU.org:
Consumer-Directed Health Plans is a tutorial that explains the principles and different models of so-called consumer-directed health plans, including Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). The tutorial also discusses how such health plans are financed, as well as the impact they are likely to have on health care spending. (June 2006)
From the Los Angeles Times:
This article from the Los Angeles Times features the story of a self-employed worker with health insurance who was left with half a million dollars in medical bills. He had bought health insurance through a discretionary association, but the association turned out to be a sham and did not pay most of his claims. Click here to read the article. To read our issue brief on discretionary associations, click here.
From the National Association of Community Health Centers:
Thirty-six million Americans, some of whom actually have health insurance coverage, lack access to basic medical care because they live in communities where there is an acute shortage of health care providers. A Nation's Health at Risk describes who and where those people are, why having a regular provider is so important, and how the national initiative to expand community health centers has helped meet this pressing need. (March 2004)
From the National Conference of State Legislatures:
U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down State HMO Liability Laws At least 170 million Americans are enrolled in HMOs, PPOs, and other managed care organizations. What happens when these organizations appear to override the recommendations of physicians and limit or deny coverage for medical care or treatment? Over the past seven years, state and federal policymakers have responded to these issues by filing legislation and, in some states, enacting new laws. On June 21, 2004, The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that patients cannot sue their HMO under state laws for failing to pay for doctor recommended care. This section of the National State Legislatures' Web site contains a background, summary, and full text of The Supreme Court opinion and information about different state laws.
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From the National Small Business Association:
Association Health Plan Legislation Will Raise Insurance Rates argues that health insurance costs for small businesses will rise, and the number of uninsured will increase by over 1 million, if federal Association Health Plan (AHP) legislation is enacted. Find out how and why in this press release. (April 2004)
From the National Women’s Law Center:
Nowhere to Turn: How the Individual Health Insurance Market Fails Women looks at the experiences of women seeking coverage in the individual insurance market between July and September, 2008. The report finds that many women face obstacles obtaining comprehensive, affordable health coverage. These challenges include being charged higher premiums than men, a practice known as “gender rating,” and being unable to find affordable maternity coverage. (September 2008)
From The New England Journal of Medicine:
Health Savings Accounts—The Ownership Society in Health Care explains how HSAs fit into the Administration's larger goal of an ownership society. The author explains how the "choices" HSAs allow consumers to make will not lower health care costs and will encourage skipping necessary medical services. (September 22, 2005)
Do High-Deductible Health Plans Threaten Quality of Care? questions whether lowering costs by shifting cost-sharing burdens toward the consumer is worth the tradeoff of decreased care. Citing the RAND Health Insurance Experiment and recent research by Harris, the article expresses concern about consumers' abilities to differentiate between necessary and unnecessary care and the limited availability of information to help consumers "shop around." (September 22, 2005)
From the Service Employees International Union:
Hazardous Health Care: The Impact of Health Savings Accounts on Minnesota Health Care identifies reasons for Minnesota's rising health care costs and explains how health savings accounts (HSAs) will not improve Minnesota's health care access and rising cost challenges. The report analyzes the health care stories of eight prototypical Minnesota families and finds that seven of the eight would face significantly higher health care bills with an HSA plan compared to regular insurance. The only family that would do better had no major -- or minor -- health care expenses in a year. (March 2005)
From State Coverage Initiatives:
Health Savings Accounts: Issues and Implementation Decisions for States provides a brief but thorough description of how health savings accounts (HSAs) work, how they compare to other tax-preferred accounts, and what HSA legislation means for state policy makers. (September 2004)
Limited-Benefit Policies: Public and Private-Sector Experiences A number of states have passed legislation allowing states to sell limited-benefit plans to small groups or to experiment with providing limit benefit plans through public programs. This issue brief examines the experiences of 11 states that have passed limited-benefit legislation and three states that have implemented limited-benefit public programs. (July 2004)
From the Urban Institute:
Can the President’s Health Care Tax Proposal Serve as an Effective Substitute for SCHIP Expansion? compares the financial burden that parents would incur in obtaining coverage for their children under the President’s tax deduction proposal against that associated with SCHIP and finds that the financial burden would be much higher under the President’s proposal. (October 2007)
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