If you are in reasonably good health, you can select High Deductible Health Insurance that can be combined with an HSA. Your monthly premiums will be less, and any money you contribute to your HSA will earn interest tax-free so your balance will grow faster than if taxed. Your Health Savings Account contributions are tax-deductible, and withdrawals from your HSA to pay for qualified medical expenses are tax-free.

With ever escalating costs for health insurance, Congress has provided a new viable option for small businesses to help their employees in the form of Health Savings Accounts. How it that different from a typical group health insurance plan?

First, you typically pay less in monthly premiums for High Deductible Health Insurance that is qualified to be combined with a Health Savings Account. Second, your contributions to your HSA plan (up to $6,150 for families in 2010) are tax deductible, and you pay no tax on withdrawals for qualified medical expenses.

A Health Savings Account is often abbreviated as "HSA", but it's typically called a health IRA in the financial industry. That's because a HSA works much like an IRA (Individual Retirement Account). When you set up a free HSA, you buy a High Deductible Health Insurance policy. If the deductible is $1,200, you pay the first $1,200 in medical costs before your insurance begins to cover charges.

If you're under 65, you can open a free Health Savings Account when you buy a qualified high-deductible health insurance plan. You can keep your HSA even when you're covered with other insurance policies if you don't have medical expenses paid by both insurance and your HSA, called "double dipping."

While you own and control your Health Savings Account, a Flexible Spending Account is controlled by your employer. That means you lose all the money in your Flexible Spending Account if you leave that employer, but you can keep your investment in your Health Savings Account if you change jobs, become unemployed, or retire.

How is that possible?

While Health Savings Accounts are excellent solutions for growing savings tax-free, they are also associated with high-deductible health insurance plans, which further helps participants to save money each month off of the cost of their monthly health insurance premiums.

Rep. Greg Canfield (R-Vestavia Hills) introduced a new bill to the Alabama House of Representatives on January 12 that would allow individuals and families in Alabama to deposit their pre-tax earnings into a Health Savings Accounts to help cover qualifying medical expenses.

However, while the Health Savings Account option helps many Americans save a significant amount of money each year off of the cost of their healthcare expenses, there are some important things that everyone will want to know about before enrolling in a Health Savings Account plan.

Many Americans are struggling to keep up with the high cost of healthcare. Not only are health insurance premiums skyrocketing, but many employers are reducing their employee benefit (or even cutting healthcare coverage altogether) in an effort to reduce their costs. Moreover, many healthcare services are not even covered at all by health insurance plans, even when health insurance plan members pay for their insurance.

So how can Americans protect themselves, their wallets, and their healthcare?