HSA Plans

[fisherman]

Has anyone had an HSA for a few years and would you be willing to share the cost increases over time? I realize the data is limited since they have only been available for a few years but the big selling point is the annual increases should be less than other plans. Is that actually true?

Also do you have a company that you would recommend or not recommend?

[Peter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fisherman the big selling point is the annual increases should be less than other plans. Is that actually true?

I must confess that I haven't seen that touted as a key selling point ... and I'm not sure I could see any reason why it should be so?

My own experience with Blue Cross of California has indeed been big increases, usually justified by the fact that I've had a birthday, or some other totally unexpected event.

What do I mean by 'big' ... well, the last increase was close to 40%. A nice 60th birthday present. At this point I bailed and moved over to Kaiser.

I still think HSAs are a good thing, though. Just not a way to avoid big premium increases.

Peter

[starter82]

The cost of my plan came down over last year (I can't recall the percentage, around 5-10%). This is the 2nd year of the plan (that I know of), so perhaps they over-calculated the cost of it for the first year. I don't yet know what's going to happen to next year's costs. I can't imagine it'll change much.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ary-19292.html

[starter82]

I checked. The plan came down about 2%, so it wasn't as much as I thought. It's still in the right direction though.

[Darryl]

2nd year with an HSA and my increase was less than the other choices. My company says they try maintain their contribution across all the plans so we pay the difference if we choose a more expensive option. If they bring that philosophy to the subject it make sense that my annual premium increase will be less than people choosing a more expensive plan.
A previous post about HSA suggested a LARGE price difference between different plans so I would strongly suggest a lot of shopping. Our plan is at BCBS.