Encouraging HSAs Is Doing Your Clients a Favor
by Dr. Stephen Neeleman

In September, I had the opportunity to visit with reporters in New York City as part of a media trip focusing on health savings accounts (HSAs). As double-digit annual increases take a bite out of everyone’s healthcare budget, it’s time to relay the message to consumers that HSAs are part of the answer to a failing national healthcare system.
      Healthcare has emerged as an important national issue that’s sure to gain momentum in the 2008 presidential elections. Healthcare follows only Iraq among issues that the public wants to hear about in presidential campaigns, according to an August 2007 survey by the Kaiser Foundation.
I visited with journalists from the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Money, ABC’s 20/20, and CNN’s Glenn Beck Show who think that the HSA story is newsworthy. ABC News has even organized a healthcare task force to identify solutions and report on them in regular news programming.
      Business owners and consumers are still reluctant about adopting HSAs, which is usually because they lack of information. Some may be skeptical of high-deductible policies or be reluctant to pay for care with an HSA account. But once the client understands the value of an HSA, they have an entirely different mindset. Consumers I talk with are genuinely interested in taking an active role in healthcare decisions, but our current system does not encourage it.
Business owners are fans of HSAs because it helps control costs. Their employees benefit from the choices that an HSA offers. Almost 50% of those who applied for an HSA were uninsured, according to a study by the Council for Affordable Health Insurance. One company in Tucson, Ariz. first offered health insurance in 2004 with an HSA. Three years later, some employees have more than $20,000 in their accounts. That money can be used for medical expenses or can be saved indefinitely while accumulating interest and other tax-free earnings. An employer-sponsored HSA is portable from one job to the other.
      I believe that HSAs are the future of America’s healthcare. Flexible spending accounts encourage people to spend. HSAs encourage people to make educated spending decisions about healthcare. Economist Milton Fried-man once said, “Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as they spend their own.”
      At Oregon Health Forum in 2003, Dr. Erik Swensson, a vascular surgeon and president of the McMinnville Physicians Organization said, “It’s a fallacy to think we’ll have active and engaged consumers if they are spending other people’s money. I guarantee there will be unlimited spending.”
      Once people realize that they can save money on healthcare, the word spreads. Many doctors and pharmacists are beginning to educate their patients about treatment and prescription alternatives. This kind of empowerment only exists in a system in which the consumer is in charge. One person I know asked her doctor about generic options for a prescription. Her doctor researched alternatives and discovered a way for her to save money. The patient told her friends about her experience and they passed on the news to others.
      If we give people good options in a free market, they can make their own decisions. The HSA is the perfect solution to help more Americans build wealth while getting healthy. Brokers are positioned to help their clients consider the HSA option and get the decision-making back in their hands.
CNN host, Glenn Beck, said it best. “It makes all the sense in the world. The solution is quite simple, and the solution is you should be in charge of your money because when you have to pay for it, you care about what it costs.” q
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Dr. Stephen Neeleman is CEO and founder of HealthEquity Inc. He is co-author of The Complete HSA Guidebook -- How to Make Health Savings Accounts Work for You. Dr. Neeleman is a former assistant professor of surgery at the University of Arizona and remains active in the medical community in Utah. Dr. Neeleman chairs the HSA Working Group for the Council for Affordable Health Insurance. He also serves on the American Health Insurance Plan’s (AHIP) HSA Leadership Council and on the National Healthcare Reform Coalition.