Health Savings Accounts: Will They Impact Markets?*

David P. Richardson and Jason Seligman

National Tax Journal, 2007, vol. 60, issue 3, 455-67

Abstract: Recently, the federal government began redirecting health care tax subsidies towards tax–exempt Health Savings Accounts (HSA). This tax program requires selection of high–deductible policies—shifting government tax subsidies away from the premium (pure insurance) component and towards the out–of–pocket (self–insurance) component of health insurance contracts. We analyze price sensitivity and relative risk burden effects from this policy change. Regarding risk burden allocations, we show HSA–eligible contracts can redistribute substantial health risk onto households. HSAs may reduce the moral hazard associated with traditional health insurance contracts but may increase adverse selection problems. Overall we find that HSAs are limited in their ability to effect heath care spending.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2007.3.07 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2007.3.07 (text/html)
Access is restricted to subscribers and members of the National Tax Association.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ntj:journl:v:60:y:2007:i:3:p:455-67

Access Statistics for this article

National Tax Journal is currently edited by Stacy Dickert-Conlin and William M. Gentry

More articles in National Tax Journal from National Tax Association, National Tax Journal Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The University of Chicago Press ().