Abstract
The 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) approved tax-advantaged health savings accounts (HSAs) for certain high-deductible health insurance plans. We predict that MMA could lead to approximately 3.2 million HSA contracts among Americans ages 19-64 who are not students, not enrolled in public health insurance plans, and not eligible for group coverage as a dependent. We simulate the effect of several additional tax subsidies for HSAs. We predict that the Bush administration's refundable tax-credit proposal would double HSA take-up and reduce the number of uninsured people by 2.9 million, at an annual cost of $8.1 billion.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1582-1591 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Health Affairs |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 2005 |