An Hsa is One Answer for Small Business Health Care
A Home Business Article Contributed by Elizabeth Fox-Wise
With Health Insurance Premiums Still on the Increase, Small Business Owners Seek Health Care Alternatives
Health care insurance premium have risen drastically for five years in row, causing many small business owners to drop coverage. As a result, record numbers of small business owners and their employees are going without health care insurance. The health care problems is quickly reaching epidemic proportion in America with the majority of the victims being small business people.
In an attempt to meat the health care needs of themselves, their families and their employees, small business owners are seeking alternatives to traditional health care insurance plans.
HSA, Health Care Savings Accounts is One Option for Small Business
A new move in health care solutions for small business is towards a Health Care Savings Account plan. A Health Care Savings Account (HSA) combines a high deductible health insurance plan with a tax free savings account with the money to be used for health care costs.
An HSA allows each participant to keep and monitor their own individual savings account. As such, this HSA can move with the employee as he moves from job to job and the money can be accumulated for years if not needed for health care expenses. If the money is never needed for health care expenses, the participant can use his HSA like a retirement account, drawing the money out and closing the account at time of retirement.
Proponents of an HSA solution to small business health care say that by giving the employee more control over his own health care money, it will help to create smarter consumers, who do not seek health care unless it is really needed. Unlike health insurance, which, by it's very nature, encourages the use of the insurance. The customer pays the same amount when he uses the insurance or not, so often feels entitled to visit the Doctor any time he gets a sore throat.
There are Also Proponents to an HSA Health Care Solution for Small Business
While many people are advocating the use of a Health Care Savings Account, there are some people who are not in support of such a health care plan.
These people argue that by giving the control of the account to the insured, you are not encouraging smart consumers, but rather are discouraging people from seeking necessary medical care, screening and treatment.
Proponents of the HSA plan feel that it is just one more means of ensuring that those with the money get the treatment and that those without do not.
Whether or not an HSA is the right alternative for small business health care is really yet to be seen. The Health Care Savings account only started being used in any quantity within the past few years, it will take longer than that for studies to be in as to the effectiveness of the HSA and the satisfaction level that consumers who are using it are experiencing. The important thing to remember is that there are health care alternatives for small business and you should explore all of them.
