WASHINGTON, September 28, 2023 – The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means will hold a markup today on two pieces of legislation to improve health savings accounts (HSAs): the Bipartisan HSA Improvement Act of 2023 (H.R. 5688) and the HSA Modernization Act of 2023 (H.R. 5687). In a letter to the Committee yesterday, The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) said these bills would make several key improvements to HSAs – including many that would significantly help persons with high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) mitigate their out-of-pocket financial costs when seeking commonplace, routine healthcare.
ERIC supports this long overdue legislation to update how HSAs can be used to pay many health care expenditures that workers and their families face every day, such as being able to use HSA dollars to pay for direct primary care fee arrangements, obtaining care at on-site or near-site health clinics, ensuring that an individual can still have an HSA even if his or her spouse has a flexible spending arrangement (FSA), and much more.
“ERIC applauds the bipartisan bill sponsors of the two HSA packages before the Committee today,” said James Gelfand, President and CEO of The ERISA Industry Committee. “These bill packages contain important policies that will help modernize the 20-year old HSA rules to allow workers to better control their health care costs and empower employers to offer more robust benefits to employees, particularly as health care costs continue to rise.
“ERIC encourages Congress to take additional steps to broaden these reforms and the list of HSA qualified services covered when performed by on-site clinics and to include language that protects veterans and servicemen eligible for health programs administered by the Department of Defense, such as TRICARE or TRICARE for Life, so they too can benefit from employer contributions to HSAs,” said Gelfand.
To see ERIC’s letter to the House Ways and Means Committee, click here.