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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 30 2012 @ 06:24 PM EDT |
The HSA is an account with the insured's (your friend's own money) but you need
to have about a $2,000 deductible (and the overall rate for insurance is about
1/2 or less than regular. You put your savings from the insurance into the HSA
at the bank (tax free) then you use your card from the bank to pay your medical
bills (with your money) until the deductible is reached. It's fully vested and
qualified (tax free) to put money into the HSA and to spend it on
"qualified medical procedures & bills).
The problem is that you can't get pricing from the hospital as to what the
discounted price is, if you want to compare charges from different hospitals or
labs (for blood work) to see what is cheapest. Neither the insurance company or
the medical facility will tell you what your bill will be ahead of time due to
"confidentiality agreements" between them as the result of
"their" negotiation. So, there is no "shopping" for the
best price... and, that, might be why medical bills are so high (due to no
competition from consumers, as they just fall into their laps so to speak,
needing care, and at that point in time, you have no choice but to pay what they
want you to pay).
If you had ability to shop for medical care, and there were a way for it to be
fair for everyone thru the tax code, it could be fixed. You for example, can't
buy a health program with an HSA as an individual, you need to belong to a
qualified group (and you can't be working part time for the employer that is
enrolled in that group either).
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