This message was self-deleted by its author

[grantcart]

69. Words mean nothing to you. You are one of the most intellectually dishonest people I have met here.

For that reason I will, for only the third time in 8 years use the ignore feature.

I give Seminars to federal employees to inform them of their benefits. We are the benefit consultants to the largest federal employee unions and we train their leadership on their benefits.

It would take too long to detail all of the points that are relevant but here are the main ones:

1) The reason that only 6% (and I am surprised it is that high) of the market use HSA's is because

a) People don't know about them. I have given seminars with 200 people and I would be surprised if 10 people even knew what they were or how they work.

b) Sign up can only occur during open seasons and most employees wait until the last few days of open season and only have time to research and act on the benefit plans that effect them the most, medical, dental, etc. Plans that have a more indirect benefit get very little attention. Plans like HSA and 529s are complicated and non urgent so they go to the bottom of the list while researching what plan your kids orthodontist usually becomes the kind of question that people look at the night before the open season is over.

c) While it is true that the benefit would have a large impact on families that make more than $ 120,000 (which would include a lot of middle class two income families) that have chronic medical conditions, most families would get a benefit closer to the minimum level of $ 2,600. If they have a 20% federal tax rate that would only mean a tax benefit of $ 520, and most federal employees simply don't know and don't spend much time on any of their benefits let alone ones that would only generate a $ 20 per pay period benefit.

d) To make it work you have to spend time to know the rules and follow the rules and the general level of ignorance on benefits is extremely high. Vision plans, for example, bring very little benefit because most people don't need new glasses every year so the average family that signs up for a vision plan spends about $ 400 a year and the cost of the premiums would only be less than the benefit if a family had 3 members getting new glasses that year. If however they get them every 3 years then they would be paying $ 1200 for about $ 420 worth of benefit.

e) The are dozens and dozens of employee benefits that provide greater benefit harm or greater benefit so HSAs are almost never covered in seminars or read up by employees when they bother to look at the boring topic of employee benefits.

To put your 6% into perspective though, we know that 30% of the people that have absolutely no need for vision plans and will not benefit from them still sign up for them. Over 50% of the people who have Lasik surgery and have vision plans remember to go back and cancel their vision plans (which they no longer benefit from) after they no longer get a benefit. The fact is when it comes to employee benefit information people spend a couple of hours learning about them when they are first hired and never look at them again.

f) Your latest comment on whether it is a niche market, and all of my comments above are irrelevant to your OP.

Your OP is titled Health Savings Accounts: Another RW SCAM That Will Do Nothing For The Non-Wealthy



The facts that have been well articulated by many interlocutors through out the thread are

1) It is not a scam
2) It benefits lots of people and because it has a $ 6,500 limit would bring very little benefit to the wealthy.
3) Anybody who pays federal income taxes and spend more than $ 2600 on medical expenses would get a benefit
4) The real benefit is to families who have chronic medical conditions.


When I saw your thread I knew that you probably were aiming at the very small number of Republican and Libertarians who are promoting HSA's as viable alternative to health plans and expected that after posters went to the trouble of explaining how many people do benefit from you would edit your title and make the point I thought you were trying to.

You didn't do that however. Instead you went on full attack and used arguments and figures to vigorously defend and attack people who obviously know a lot more about this than you do.

The simply response to your latest attack line is: It is not a benefit that is limited to a "niche" market but even if it was that does not support the OP which claims that it is a scam. (I do not believe that your assertion that the vast majority of HSA accounts are held by households with more than $ 200,000, but again that is not relevant to the question if it is a benefit to people that make less and just don't bother with it).

What makes your OP so completely dishonest however is reply 66 where you assert that the thoughtful replies that shredded your OP do not "prove" your OP correct.

In fact the following sentence

quote
They're pushing the idea that HSAs are a widespread replacement for the insurance people now get through their employer or that they buy on the open market.
unquote

completely changes the meaning of your OP completely and basically concedes agreement to the many people who responded on your unqualified attack on all HSA.

You could not resist coming back to the thread and patting yourself on the back even though doing so meant that you would have to change the basic premise of the OP. If you had an ounce of intellectual honesty you would have gone back and changed the farcical title of the OP and make clear that you were against HSAs as replacement for health plans rather than attacking them as simply one part of a benefit scheme.

So even though I found the OP extremely poorly written OP, which is confirmed by your changing the premise in your reply in 66 that is not why I am putting you on ignore.

You are going on ignore because even though it is clear that the OP was poorly written your hubris couldn't help you from posting a completely misleading self congratulatory pat on your back.