Out-of-pocket health care spending in 2018 is predicted to be $371 billion, but just $86.3 billion of that will have been channeled through tax-advantaged benefit accounts. (Image: Shutterstock)
Leaving tax savings on the table? Say it ain't so!
However, that's exactly what a new research report from consumer-directed health care solutions firm Alegeus says will happen—and because consumers aren't up to speed on health and financial fluency.
While such tax-advantaged accounts as FSAs, HSAs and HRAs let consumers save pretax money to pay eligible health care expenses, too many people fail to take advantage of them even though many employers offer them.
An Aite Group report cited by Alegeus finds that out-of-pocket health care spending in 2018 is predicted to be $371 billion, but just $86.3 billion of that will have been channeled through tax-advantaged benefit accounts. That means that consumers are leaving close to $85 billion in tax savings unclaimed, assuming an average tax rate between federal and state of 30 percent. And that's just for this year. In addition, the report says that if consumers did claim those savings, employers could potentially save $22 billion—or 7.65 percent.
According to findings from Alegeus, lots of consumers just aren't disciplined about saving, whether it's for health care or for any other cause. In fact, 51 percent say that they don't have a rainy-day fund and aren't disciplined about saving for retirement, either.
A large part of that could be because they have little confidence about financial subjects overall, with 48 percent saying they don't know how to build a financial plan and 41 percent saying they don't feel confident talking about finance.
They also don't understand basic health and financial terminology and concepts, with 42 percent failing a basic true/false fluency test regarding their personal finances and 50 percent failing the health insurance fluency test.
And when it comes to out-of-pocket costs, 51 percent have no clue what they'll be this plan year, and 58 percent are clueless about how much to save for health care costs once they're retired.
They also don't know what they don't know, with half of those saying they're confident about financial knowledge giving the wrong answers to simple questions.
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Marlene Satter
Marlene Y. Satter has worked in and written about the financial industry for decades.
