Does Anyone Use the Health Savings Account Instead of Normal Health Insurance?

Try comparing plans on eHealthInsurance.com. The IRS requires that you also have a high-deductible health insurance plan along with the HSA. Once you pick the insurance plan (such as Lifewise or Regence), then you are given options to choose a HSA administrator (usually a bank). You can complete the whole sign-up process online if you want. It's great at the end of the year to be able to write off your whole contribution to the HSA and it covers more expenses than traditional insurance (like over-the-counter meds, etc.)

J. - I've had to do a lot of hunting in the last few years for insurance, and just this month my husband's HSA plan goes into effect. This is our first HSA, but Ramsey's right- it's ideal for young healthy people because you're not sending away hundreds each month for insurance you'll never use. We found a great plan with Group Health, and since my hubby has only seen a dr twice in the last four years, it's no big deal for us to switch to their doctors. (You can keep your own, but they then pay less on the claim.) I found it on their website, applied online, and they sent me the paperwork. Really easy. It'll be something like $68/month compared to over $100 before. However, the deductible is $500 higher than before ($2000 vs. $1750), but if he's in an accident or suddenly gets really sick, we figure we'd be paying in installments forever, anyway!

Now, you can use the plan without setting up the actual account. An HSA is only going to help you if you're regularly putting money into it, so I'd suggest setting up an automatic transfer of $xx every two weeks (or whatever) to make it as painless as possible. This should be a tax free account - money going in is before taxes, and not taxed when you withdraw it - but we're still looking to figure out how to make all that work. I hope the bank will help us when we go in to set up the account!

FYI, I have separate insurance because there is no maternity coverage on the plan we bought for my husband, it's a Regence Blue Shield plan.

Feel free to send me a separate message if you have a more specific question. I've worked in insurance billing for a long time.

Check plans online with Regence Blue Shield and Lifewise Health Plan of Washington. Some of them are combined with a catastrophic plan, which is always best to have as a backup in case of an emergency or serious illness, to cover extended expenses and hospital stays. If you plan on having more kids make sure you add maternity benefits before concieving though! It does make sense to put the money you'd spend on an expensive health plan into health savings, it's true that healthy families spend more on insurance than they would on healthcare each year. But make sure you have a catastrophic plan (they're pretty cheap) on hand as well just in case. Good luck!

Before you get on this type of insurance, think about whether you plan to have more children. This is our second year on a high dectuctible insurance with and HSA through my husband's work. The plan offers 80/20 preventitive care up to a certain amount, but everything else you pay %100 until you meet the deductible. The first year it was great. We definitely saved money on insurance premiums.

This year, we accidentally became pregnant. I knew there had to be a lot of costs associated with pregnancy because of all the doctor visits and the tests you take. However, it has become very real now that we are paying all of them. We will probably meet my deductible this year and maybe even reach the out-of-pocket maximum.

It hasn't been a problem financially, because we have enough money in our HSA to cover expenses so far. (We are very glad we put so much money in last year.) But we might have considered more comprehensive coverage if we had been planning to have a baby.