Benefits of health savings accounts

 The health savings accounts (HSA for short) have generated much excitement recently and rightly so. With rising health insurance, many companies are cutting costs by offering the alternative that has a high deductible for employees.

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HSAs are mainly used to help pay medical expenses with tax-free money, but can only be set if you have a health plan with a high deductible and supports that option.

There are many other benefits: the funds in those accounts you do not use for medical expenses can accumulate for retirement as an individual retirement account or "IRA". In other words, there is no deadline to use funds from the HSA.

A striking feature of an HSA is that once the account is set up and funded with only $ 1, you can expect to know exactly how many are your medical expenses to make deposits on the account; get a tax deduction for the deposit and pay for medical expenses with tax-free money.

For example, David and Mary have a health insurance plan with a high deductible by the employer of David, which is compatible with an HSA. On March 1, Mary learns she is pregnant. They are not sure how much you will pay for delivery. David can immediately establish an HSA plan and depositing only $ 1. Any medical expenses after the date the account is established, can be paid by it. So when the couple get your hospital bill for an amount of $ 3,000, you can deposit that amount in the HSA, get a tax deduction for the deposit and pay the hospital bill with tax-free money.

It is important to note that if you withdraw money from your HSA for other than medical expenses, you will have to pay taxes on the same distribution and if you are under 65 years of age, will also be subject to a fine.

Making the most of HSAs

To get the most benefit from an HSA, a family would contribute the maximum allowed each year. For 2016 the maximum is $ 6.750. If you have medical expenses, they may pay the account, but if you do not use it for that purpose, they can leave the money accumulated in the account and the benefit will be free from paying taxes.

With the maximum annual deposit of $ 6.750 plus interest or investment earnings, the HSA can help a family to accumulate almost $ 150,000 in the course of 20 years. This can be used to cover medical expenses during retirement and the best part is that you get a tax deduction for contributions each year.

The Human Resources department of your company can be a good starting point to help you determine if your health insurance is a high-deductible plan, if it is compatible with an HSA and can give you details on the establishment and financing of the same . If your health plan is independent, it is a good idea to check with your insurance provider or financial adviser.

Anthem Hacking - Perspective

In comments to one of our previous posts on this topic, Co-Blogger Bob makes a terrific point:

"Not taking anything away from Mandiant as they are the "A team" when it comes to tracking down hackers ... Most companies do very little when it comes to cybersecurity and many (mo st?) have probably been hacked and just don't know it."

This morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that "Anthem Inc. stored the Social Security numbers of 80 million customers without encrypting them." On the face of it, this seems pretty unconscionable.

But is it?

I reached out to several of our carriers, and to AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans), which represents (most of) the carriers. I had but one question:

"Is this an egregiously unusual oversight, or industry standard?"

That is, is Anthem an outlier here, or do most carriers leave that kind of information unencrypted? The folks at AHIP were kind enough to send me a copy of the HHS regs on the subject, but also told me that they'd not surveyed their members on it, so can't tell me whether or not this is SOP.

I'm still waiting to hear back from my carriers, and will update this post as appropriate.

JUST IN from Anthem:

Members who may have been impacted by the cyber attack against us should be aware of scam email campaigns targeting current and former members.  These scams, designed to capture personal information (known as “phishing”) are designed to appear as if they are from a health plan and the emails include a “click here” link for credit monitoring. These emails are NOT from us.

• DO NOT click on any links in email.
• DO NOT reply to the email or reach out to the senders in any way.
• DO NOT supply any information on the website that may open, if you clicked on a link in email.
• DO NOT open any attachments that arrive with email.

We are not calling members regarding the cyber attack and are not asking for credit card information or social security numbers over the phone.

Friday LinkFest

So, several items that, while blogworthy, don't seem to merit their own dedicated post:

■ As we've already seen, the future of health care CO-OPs is, at best, rocky. At the Employee Benefit Advisor, Bruce Shutan looks under the hood, and notes that "it captured nearly a quarter of the total enrollment for all 23 consumer-operated and oriented plans known as CO-OPs operating in 24 states," all on a "shoe-string" budget. Bruce has some thoughts on how this will play out as we go forward..

■ FoIB Holly R tips us to this tidbit of tantalizing info:

"The White House cyber czar may have had personal information leaked in the recent Anthem data breach."

That breach, news of which is still evolving, may end up "touching" a lot more folks than originally believed.

■ As we've noted many times, wine (especially the reds) have been linked to several positive health effects. Turns out, that IPA you were drinking last Sunday may also help:

"[B]eer also confers some health benefits, according to a new study, which found a compound within can ward off dementia and other cognitive decline."

L'chaim!

Obamacare Enrollment Update

The folks that brought us Obamacare and a non-working website like to keep those who are interested up to

date on the latest score. The latest installment for week 10 of the Obamacare open enrollment saga goes like this.

Since Open Enrollment began on November 15, almost 7.3 million consumers selected a plan or were automatically re-enrolled through the HealthCare.gov platform, which includes the Federally Facilitated Marketplace (FFM), State Partnership Marketplaces and supported State-Based Marketplaces. - HHS

7.3 million selected a plan or were re-enrolled.

Sounds a lot like the stimulus reports about jobs created or saved.

Selecting a plan does not mean actually applying for coverage. Nor does it mean the premium was paid. In DC-speak it means window shopping.

The same is true for the automatic re-enrollment.

Until you actually PAY for your policy you don't have coverage.

Isn't it odd how they fail to count the number of people that actually LOST health insurance because of Obamacare?

Anthem Hacked [UPDATED]

Picking up on where Bob left off ...

As you've no doubt already heard, hackers were able to gain access to Anthem's systems, and access the personal information of both clients and employees (it's not clear whether "employees" include independent agents/brokers who represent the carrier). All told, it appears that over 80 million folks were affected.

To its credit, Anthem sent out an email last night addressing the problem:

To our valued business partner:

Safeguarding your clients’ personal, financial and medical information is one of our top priorities, and because of that, we have state-of-the-art information security systems to protect your data. However, despite our efforts, Anthem was the target of a very sophisticated external, cyber attack. These attackers gained unauthorized access to Anthem’s information technology (IT) system and have obtained personal information from our current and former members such as their names, birthdays, member ID/Social Security numbers, street addresses, email addresses and employment information, including income data. Based on the information we know now, there is no evidence that banking, credit card, medical information (such as claims, test results, or diagnostic codes) were targeted or compromised.

Once the attack was discovered, Anthem immediately made every effort to close the security vulnerability, contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and began fully cooperating with their investigation. Anthem has also retained Mandiant, one of the world’s leading cybersecurity firms, to evaluate our systems and identify solutions based on the evolving landscape. [ed: emphasis added, see below]

Anthem’s own associates’ personal information was accessed during this security breach. We join you in your concern and frustration, and we assure you that we are working around the clock to do everything we can to further secure your clients' data.

Anthem will individually notify current and former members whose information has been accessed. We will provide credit monitoring and identity protection services free of charge so that those who have been affected can have peace of mind. We have created a dedicated website (www.AnthemFacts.com) where members can access information such as frequently asked questions and answers. We have also established a dedicated toll-free number that both current and former members can call if they have questions related to this incident. That number is: 1-877-263-7995. As we learn more, we will continually update this website and share that information with you.

We want to personally apologize to you and your clients for what has happened, as we know you expect us to protect your information. We will do everything in our power to make our systems and security processes better and more secure, and hope that we can earn back your trust.

Sincerely,

Ken Goulet
President, Commercial and Specialty Business

Erin Hoeflinger
Ohio Plan President
 
Regarding Mandiant and cyber-remediation: on the one hand, this seems very much like closing the barn door. On the other, at least they recognize their vulnerability, and are seeking to mitigate and minimize it. One suspects that Mandiant (and its competitors) will be very busy going forward, as other insurers take stock of their own potential weak spots.

UPDATE: FoIB Holly R catches this from Bloomberg:

"... hackers obtained data on tens of millions of current and former customers and employees"

And asks: "How former?"

Good question, disturbing implications.

Blue Attack

Anthem Blue Cross policyholder data hacked. Possible 37 million affected.

The information accessed during the "very sophisticated attack" did include names, birthdays, social security numbers, street addresses, email addresses and employment information, including income data, the company said. - Yahoo News

Taxes, Shmaxes

Thanks to Moe Lane, we have this little gem:

"Consumers who received too much in federal tax credits ... got a reprieve of sorts from the Internal Revenue Service this week. Although they still have to repay ... excess subsidies, the IRS won’t ding them with a late payment penalty if they don’t repay it by the April 15 tax deadline."

Which is nice for them, but creates a problem:

"The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

So what's the problem?

Well, suppose you owe taxes on something (other than the subsidy clawback), and fail to pay on time: you're still subject to fines and interest. But for the special snowflakes that "miscalculated" their subsidies, well, no worries, mate.

Of course, it's not really a problem at all, at least according to the Obamastration:

"White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest described reports that millions of Americans would be getting tax bill because of Obamacare as "inaccurate" just days after the Treasury Department estimated that 6 million Americans will pay about $2 billion in individual mandate taxes this year."

Left hand meet right hand.

Sheesh.