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Health
Savings Accounts Appeal to Forward Thinking Individuals
By choosing
an HSA, one is betting on themselves, in a way. If you
stay healthy, then with a typical health insurance plan you’re
just out a lot of money. With an HSA, not only did you
pay significantly less in premiums, but at the end of the
year you have a nice deposit of up to $5,250 sitting in your
account. Money on which you didn’t pay federal
income taxes, state income taxes (with the exception of about
six states), or social security taxes.
Let’s
say a 30-year old man with a family opens an HSA and has a
high-deductible health plan that allows him to fund the account
with $5,250 each year. If he takes $1,000 or less out
each year for medical expenses, and earns a 10% return on
his money, he’ll have $1,422,878 when he retires.
(You can do your own calculations with our HSA
Future Value Calculator).
The best
way to accumulate this much money in your HSA is to stay healthy,
so that you don’t need to access those funds to pay for
medical expenses. The good news is that the vast majority
of diseases and disorders people have are the direct result
of their lifestyle choices. High blood pressure, cancer,
diabetes, Alzheimers, digestive disorders, endometriosis,
osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and more, are all largely preventable.
The
average guy doesn’t get it.
The average
American lives as if social security, a few prescriptions,
and some good luck will take care of him in his later years.
So he saves little for retirement. He eats packaged
foods like French fries, chips, cokes, pasta, and cold cuts.
And over the years he puts on “a few extra pounds”,
and he gets out-of-shape, and he gets high blood pressure,
and high cholesterol, and eventually heart disease, cancer,
diabetes, or Alzheimers.
Insurance
companies get it.
Some insurance
companies do understand the tremendous impact lifestyle can
have on health, and are beginning to institute programs to
encourage healthy lifestyles among their customers.
Healthy policyholders will use their coverage less, resulting
in lower rates for them, and better customer retention and
higher profitability for the insurance company. Pacificare
and its subsidiary American Medical Security have just instituted
a new program called HealthCredits, designed to help reward
its customers for staying healthy. The online program
provides a health risk assessment, a personalized health-improvement
plan, email access to trainers, counselors, and nutritionists,
and even credits that can be redeemed for health-related merchandise.
HSA
owners get it.
People
who open Health Savings Accounts are proactive. They
act ahead of time, and think about how their actions now will
affect their future. That is why they put away tax-deferred
money for future possible health expenses, and that is why
I think many are also interested in taking a proactive approach
to their health. So in addition to talking about HSAs
in this newsletter, in the future I will also be giving information
and tips about how to be optimally healthy. Choosing
to live an extraordinarily healthy life, and actively making
lifestyle changes, is an activity that will bring tremendous
returns. Tax-free, just like an HSA.
To your
health and wealth,
Wiley
Long
President
HSA
for America
PS – If you need assistance in choosing a high-deductible
health insurance plan, please contact us at 866-749- 2039,
or visit our website www.HSAforAmerica.com.
Please
visit my new Health
Savings Account Blog for daily news, information,
and commentary on all aspects of Health Savings Accounts.
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to Maximize Your HSA
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