Reforming health care — to benefit banks?

[leQ]

President Bush wants even more Americans to make use of Health Savings Accounts.

He touted them in his State of the Union address while discussing ways to combat the rising cost of health care. And he’s asking for billions in new tax breaks as incentives for using the accounts.

(snip)

According to a report by DiamondCluster International, a management-consulting firm, Americans will have saved $75 billion in HSAs by 2010. The report estimates financial institutions can capture $3.5 billion in account and management fees over the next five years, and payment processors can capture $2.3 billion in transaction fees.
Wow. Billions of health-care dollars landing in the pockets of financial institutions.

The DiamondCluster International report is titled “Seizing the HSA Opportunity: Developing a Winning Strategy to Grow Profits & Market Share in a Time of Transition.” It reminds financial institutions that the last time they were “presented with an opportunity like this was the introduction of the IRA in 1974.”

source: The Des Moines Register

anybody else hear about this report? why isn't it making bigger waves than a midwestern editorial page?

on edit: i have a copy of that report if anybody would like it.

[Lasher]

1. Maybe it's not being covered because it's so usual

Just dust off the script for the Medicare prescription drug 'benefit' and that's pretty much what Dubya wants to do with health care in general.

Those of you with employer-provided health care benefits, beware: The repukes are planning to take that away from you (this includes retirees) and replace it with this new nightmare.

On edit: Happy Valentine's Day.

[shraby]

2. I really don't know how people

will be able to have a health care savings account when they can't even put money in the bank for regular run of the mill saving.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. You've got it right, shraby!

As a self-employed person, I checked out HSAs to see if I could save some money on those high monthly premiums.

Current situation: $272 a month, $1000 deductible, 80% coverage after that.

Same company's HSA: $253 a month, $2600 deductible, 100% coverage after that, but you really have to save over $200 a month to make it work

Other company that offers health insurance to the self-employed in Minnesota: $280 a month, $2400 deductible, 100% after that. Same problem.

Great deal, huh, especially when, as a person with a fluctuating income, I sometimes have to scrape to make the $272 premium.

This is just another tax break for the affluent and a source of even more fees for the banks.

[antigop]

4. Another article -- by a consulting firm -- "trillion dollar opportunity"

http://extfile.bah.com/livelink/livelink/78186/?func=doc.Fetch&nodeid=78186

>>>
Beyond revolutionizing healthcare benefits,
defined-contribution plans will create 50
to 100 million new individual investment
accounts. The $1 trillion annual money flow
will trigger a convergence of healthcare
benefits and traditional financial services.
>>

Booz Allen Hamilton is a consulting firm.

[sarcasmo]

5. People making twelve dollars and under will have no money to save for

HSA's. Making twelve dollars and under is barely enough to get by.