NYT: Savings Accounts for Health Costs Attract Wall St.

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/business/27health.html?hp&ex=1138338000&en=de9d4b4a2c2382c1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

When it comes to medical benefits, millions of Americans already have a health insurer. Soon, many will also have a debit card and a bank tied to their medical plan.

Banks, credit unions and money management firms are now quietly positioning themselves to become central players in the business of health care, offering 401(k)-type accounts to cover future medical expenses.

Bank of America, J. P. Morgan Chase, Fidelity Investments and hundreds of others are hoping to capitalize on the latest wrinkle in medical care paid by consumers: health savings accounts, which have been around since 2003 but are moving to the fore of the national agenda in anticipation of the State of the Union address on Tuesday.

These supercharged checking accounts, which must be linked to a high-deductible health insurance plan, allow consumers to invest their own money for current and future medical expenses and have it grow tax-free.

[bluestateguy]

1. Pigs

Can't these people keep their little mitts off of anything?

[rodeodance]

2. same industry that loved the now debunked 'private savings account" of

SS "reform"

[rodeodance]

3. this industry will probably write the bill/law also.

[MO_Dem]

4. They didn't get our social security money

and I hope to hell they don't get this fraud through. John Edwards was right about two Americas, but this bunch of money-changers would just as soon see us "have-nots" wither and die on the vine and leave them with their one rich America.

[Gloria]

5. Memo to Dems: check out Bob Dole's presidential campaign

and the pilot Medical Savings Accounts program. I participated in this limited pilot....trust me, you have to have spare cash hanging around to put it in. You could put in something like 65% of what your premium was on a high-deductible plan. Meaning, you had to pay the premium, then find extra cash in an amount up to 65% of the premium....

This is just another tax shelter for people with extra money hanging around. The average person living paycheck to paycheck won't be able to use it.

PS--the fees for this thing were ridiculous. I finally found a company that didn't charge a yearly maintenance fee of $100, which was allowed by the program. And, the funds I invested in were no-load, unlike some of the high expense funds in some of the plans "suggested" by the program. As of now, I haven't gained much by being about half in cash and in a growth and income fund. The money would be have been doing better in CDs....

[rodeodance]

11. the fact that finace industries want this tells me eveything I need to kno

w.

[mike_c]

6. pigs indeed....

Words fail me.... Medical insurance will become just another tax, and sick people will only receive treatment if they have a fat account to tap. Meanwhile, the bankers will prosper from their fear. :grr:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. "millions of Americans already have a health insurer"

Millions don't. And I mean MILLIONS.

The Times. :eyes:

[The_Casual_Observer]

8. It's going to get to the point where I would rather take the gas pipe

than pay any money to those filthy motherfuckers. They take the money from old sick people and spend it on a sky box at some god damned baseball stadium ( who else has those shit things). You fucking know they do.

[applegrove]

9. How could it not. If the government puts social security in the market -

they hire really great stockbrokers and beat the market 12 times more often than the regular investor (kinda like Senators). If each granny is in the stock market - well their is more money to beat and less informed people to "challenge" in the dominance of the market by high priced investor managers. Also more fees.

When you sell - you want to sell to someone not very informed. They'll give you a better price.

[SoCalDem]

10. the "business" of health care is what has destroyed it

I would love to see things go back to the way it used to be. Most hospitals were not for profit and were run by religious orders or by the community it was in..Doctors had ordinary offices in ordinary business buildings. You migth have had to travel a bit to a larger city for exotoc tests,but for run of the mill stuff and lab tests or broken bones, it was one-stop shopping with a doctor who actually knew you. The price was affordable, and medicine was still affordable too.

As soon as the ghouls saw there was big money to be made by buying up consolidating all these small clinics and hospitals, we were all doomed.

[rodeodance]

12. recommed this.

[area51]

13. k & r (n/t)

[Vinca]

14. There's a hitch here.

In order to have a medical savings account you have to be able to afford the insurance. I priced it last weekend and it's still a thousand bucks a month for us. Unless they come up with an affordable policy to accompany the savings accounts, this is just a Wall Street handout.

[AzDar]

15. Vultures, plain and simple. People's health shouldn't be a commodity.

eom