Health Savings Accounts: a tax-sheltered way to pay for quackery [View all]

[HuckleB]

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/heath-savings-accounts-a-tax-sheltered-way-to-pay-for-quackery/

"If you want money to pay for pseudoscience, but your pesky health insurance company is getting in the way, a Health Savings Account might be just the solution. And if the Health Savings Act of 2016, sponsored by the Big Supplement’s own Senator Orrin Hatch, becomes law, your opportunities will be greatly expanded.

First, let’s take a look at Health Savings Accounts and explore how they can be used to pay for quackery. Then we’ll see how Hatch’s Senate Bill 2499 (and companion House Bill 4469) would essentially force taxpayers to fund consumer purchases of unproven and potentially unsafe dietary supplements and “The One Quackery To Rule Them All,” homeopathy. Finally, we’ll look at how all of this might affect the presidential race.

...

One of the sponsors of Sen. Bill 2499 is current presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio. Could it possibly prove an embarrassment to Sen. Rubio that he is supporting such obvious corporate welfare? Or alternative medicine? As to the latter, it is unlikely. Bernie Sanders is a longtime proponent of naturopathy and Hillary Clinton is in the thrall of Functional Medicine guru Dr. Mark Hyman, but no one seems to think a thing about it. On the other hand, Ben Carson did get a drubbing over his shilling for a supplement company, but I imagine he was going to flame out anyway. And Donald Trump’s anti-vaccination nonsense was duly criticized, although he doesn’t seem to have suffered any ill effects from it (or anything he says, for that matter). Rand Paul and Chris Christie also pandered to the anti-vaccination movement, but they’re out of the running now.

Back in the day, Congress investigated quackery as a social ill. Today, Congress pushes tax deductions for its purchase. And presidential candidates freely support medical pseudoscience. What a shame."


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Once again, science gets ignored by our politicians.