Mudita Journal

Medical Savings Accounts

December 27, 2002 · Filed under: Health, Personal, Politics
Share

My wife Kathy points out that incoming Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is backing a plan for wider use of medical savings accounts (MSAs), and the White House is excited about the plan. This is potentially good news.

Kathy has been on an MSA plan for more than a year, and this past year I joined her. It’s been working out fine so far.

The FoxNews article linked above notes that only about 100,000 Americans have signed up for medical savings accounts. One reason for this low number, however, is that insurance salesmen are paid based on the size of the premiums they sell. Since MSAs have such low premiums, most salesfolk don’t bother to learn about them — much less promote them to their clients.

Kathy and I take a principled opposition to Clinton-style plans for socialized health care, as well as “traditional” health insurance, since they both lead to the sort of third-party-payer problems that have come to a head in recent decades in Britain and Canada.

The Cascade Policy Institute has a terrific pamphlet in PDF format analyzing America’s health care problems and discussing some sound alternatives, including MSAs. Here’s an excerpt:

The reassertion of consumer sovereignty in health care is the only feasible means of containing health care costs while assuring that the consumers obtain the health care services they need. Interestingly, after 110 years, even the granddaddy of socialized health care systems, the German system, has recognized that limiting over-insurance, and reasserting private sector involvement, is the solution to runaway health care costs.

The whole pamphlet’s good reading if you’re interested in this subject. And Kathy says she’d be happy to answer questions by e-mail about her own experiences with an MSA.

Posted by Joshua Zader · Trackback URL · Link
blog comments powered by Disqus