President Bush outlined his vision for making the country’s healthcare system “more affordable, transparent, portable, and efficient” in a new report. Many of Bush’s initiatives focus on making health savings accounts more enticing, such as offering greater tax incentives for those without employer-sponsored health care to enroll in high-deductible plans, providing tax credits to low-income Americans to fund HSAs, allowing employers to make higher contributions to workers with chronic illnesses, and creating employer-sponsored HSAs that employees can take with them when they leave their jobs. Bush also highlighted proposals to give Americans the option to purchase health insurance in any state and to allow groups of religious and community organizations and small businesses to form associations to get the same economies of scale large employers get when they purchase health insurance. Federal funding would be directed to establishing community health centers in every high-poverty county and providing $500 million annually for states to develop innovative ways to cover the chronically ill, according to Bush’s plans.
Learn strategies for dealing with HSAs at HFMA's Spring Summit on consumer-directed health care and pay-for-performance.
