HSA-like options for employees in high demand, survey shows

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Both employers and employees are interested in a new type of health account similar to a health savings account (HSA) that would help employees pay for out-of-pocket health care costs. 

The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Greenwald Research surveyed workers about their interest in such a tool and found strong enthusiasm, with 55% of respondents indicating they were either very or extremely interested.

EBRI described the potential HSA-like plan as one that would be funded with post-tax contributions and could be paired with any health plan, not just high-deductible plans. Like HSAs, these plans could be funded by both employees and employers, invested in the stock market and follow the worker from job to job. 

In the two decades since they were introduced, HSAs have become a cornerstone of the health benefits landscape, with more than one-quarter of private sector workers with individual coverage enrolled in an HSA-eligible health plan to which their employee contributed. However, many workers are in plans with deductibles that are not high enough to qualify for pairing with an HSA and therefore can’t take advantage of their benefits, said EBRI.

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Employers also showed interest in this new type of health plan, with nearly 83% expressing some interest in offering them if they were able to. The size of the company played some role in interest, EBRI said. At least 82% of benefits decision makers responded that they were either very or extremely interested in offering these hypothetical health accounts, regardless of employer size.

However, benefits decision makers at companies with 2,500 to 9,999 employees were more likely to respond that they were extremely interested, whereas their counterparts at companies that employed over 10,000 workers were more likely to reply that they were very interested.