Each month Devenir highlights a selection of articles to keep you abreast of the latest trends and developments in the HSA marketplace.
A summary of the articles included in the December 2018 edition:
- Employers Stepping Up, Not Stepping Away from, CDHPs
- Maintaining HSA Eligibility: 8 Things Employers Can Do
- Deposit Interest Rates in Health Savings Accounts
- A Split Congress May Pursue Bipartisan Health Care Fixes
- Morningstar’s Second Annual Assessment of the 10 Largest Health Savings Account Plans Finds Investment Quality Has Improved but High Fees and Lack of Transparency Remain Hurdles
- Vanguard Partners With HealthEquity To Offer Health Savings Accounts To 401(k) Participants
Employers Stepping Up, Not Stepping Away from, CDHPs
A recent article in Kaiser Health News, picked up by media outlets, provocatively announced that “High Deductible Health Plans Fall from Grace in Employer-based Coverage”. Citing a recent survey of large employers showing a steep drop in respondents offering only an HDHP, the article noted that “Companies have slowed enrollment in such coverage”. Have they? Let’s take a breath. Mercer’s just-released 2018 National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans reports continued growth of both offerings of these plans and enrollment in them among midsize and large employers, though at a slower rate than in most recent years.
Maintaining HSA Eligibility: 8 Things Employers Can Do
For employers sponsoring high-deductible health plans with HSAs, ensuring that the HDHP continuously remains HSA qualified is no easy task. One challenge in this arena is that most of the rules and regulations are tax related, and most benefit professionals are not tax professionals. To help, EBN created a 2019 pre-flight checklist for employers.
Deposit Interest Rates in Health Savings Accounts
It’s open enrollment season for employer-provided health insurance and other benefits. Increasingly on the menu at many companies? HDHPs, usually paired with a health savings account. Yet even as you’ve probably heard about using an HSA as a short-term vehicle to cover ongoing healthcare outlays, and as a long-term savings vehicle to harness the tax-sheltered compounding, the ability to use an HSA for other financial objectives has gotten less attention.
A Split Congress May Pursue Bipartisan Health Care Fixes
Republicans expanded their Senate majority in the Nov. 6 midterm elections, but Democrats will have a majority in the House when Congress convenes in January. The partisan divide makes it unlikely that any major changes in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will advance to the desk of President Donald Trump. But that doesn’t mean bipartisan efforts to address health care challenges are off the table.
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Morningstar’s Second Annual Assessment of the 10 Largest Health Savings Account Plans Finds Investment Quality Has Improved but High Fees and Lack of Transparency Remain Hurdles
Morningstar published its second annual study assessing plans from 10 of the largest HSA plan providers. Morningstar evaluated the plans through two different lenses: as an investment vehicle to save for future medical expenses and as a spending vehicle to cover current medical costs. The study found that The HSA Authority is the best plan both as an investment for future needs and as a spending vehicle for current costs. More generally, Morningstar found that the quality of investment options has improved across HSAs, but high fees and low transparency remain hurdles.
Vanguard Partners With HealthEquity To Offer Health Savings Accounts To 401(k) Participants
Vanguard announced a partnership with HealthEquity to provide defined contribution (DC) plan sponsors and their participants a new service integrating health and wealth planning for retirement. Vanguard will offer sponsors the ability to provide a leading HSA solution to their employees that features low-cost Vanguard funds or the same investment options as their 401(k) plan line-up.