Decades in the making, the healthcare reform bill that many have been waiting for has passed. The bill is not perfect, but it is still the right thing to do.
I, myself am not happy about one aspect, which will prohibit the use of Health Savings Accounts (HSA's) to spend on non-prescription drugs. What this means, is that legally I cannot use my tax free account to pay for aspirin, contact lens solution, and things like that. However, this is merely a change to the Internal Revenue law, meaning that the only way someone would get hit for using their HSA this way, is if their taxes were audited and it was found they used the money for this purpose. It will be a nightmare both to enforce and to educate the public on, since FSA's are seemingly unchanged. Now there will be some expenses that are HSA and FSA eligible and some that are just HSA eligible.
But I digress; there are definitely some positives to this bill. Largely speaking, it will make the loss of a job less likely to lead to a loss in healthcare. While not all changes take effect for several years, there will be high risk pools, and options available to people with pre-existing conditions. Soon enough, our system will probably be closer to the Swiss system, than any other. And it is probably one of the better systems, a mix of public and private.
Time will tell if this is a success or a failure, but what is certain is that some type of change is definitely on its way.
2010-03-21
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3 comments:
Hi, found your blog through a search about HSA and the new health reform bill. Is there a place to see exactly how this bill is spelled out? I am looking for how the IRS is going to determine what is affordable insurance for people.
My suggestion would be to look up the full text of the bill itself. Any website you look at is going to be somewhat biased in terms of the "overview" they give.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree with respect to this bill being "good" or not.
I will say that I think this bill was the result of the best of intentions. I do believe it is a noble effort to want everyone covered. The real rub, as always, comes in paying for that coverage. And that is where I find SO much fault with this bill. It is built on a deck of cards in terms of the CBO numbers used.
I really worry about how our children will pay for it. The bigger question for me is why our government cannot seem to do what every single working class family does on a budget... namely, look at cutting when appropriate. Rather than trying to raise new sources of revenue for this or that, I'd rather them start by looking at what they can reduce/cut to pay for it for once.
EVoREV.net
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