4 Main Impacts of Yesterday's Executive Order
Yesterday, President Trump used his pen to set his sights on healthcare having completed the signing of an executive order after Congress failed to repeal ObamaCare.
Here’s a quick dig into some of what this order means and who might be impacted from yesterday's signing.
A Focus On Small Businesses
The executive order eases rules on small businesses banding together to buy health insurance, through what are known as association health plans, and lifts limits on short-term health insurance plans, according to an administration source. This includes directing the Department of Labor to "modernize" rules to allow small employers to create association health plans, the source said. Small businesses will be able to band together if they are within the same state, in the same "line of business," or are in the same trade association.
Skinny Plans
The executive order expands the availability of short-term insurance policies, which offer limited benefits meant as a bridge for people between jobs or young adults no longer eligible for their parents’ health plans. This extends the limited three-month rule under the Obama administration to now nearly a year.
Pretax Dollars
This executive order also targets widening employers’ ability to use pretax dollars in “health reimbursement arrangements”, such as HSAs and HRAs, to help workers pay for any medical expenses, not just for health policies that meet ACA rules. This is a complete reversal of the original provisions of the Obama policy.
Research and Get Creative
The executive order additionally seeks to lead a federal study on ways to limit consolidation within the insurance and hospital industries, looking for new and creative ways to increase competition and choice in health care to improve quality and lower cost.
HSAs on the Rise, but Employees Need to Know More About Them
Are your employees aware of the many benefits and features associated with HSAs? Check out this great article by Marlene Y. Satter from Benefits Pro on why it is important employees are knowledgeable about HSAs, so they can prepare for their health care expenses while planning for retirement.
According to Fidelity Investments, health savings accounts — and the assets within them — are rising quickly, as both employers and employees try to find ways to pay for health care. Still, a number of the features of HSAs are still underutilized.
While Fidelity says that assets in its HSAs rose 50 percent in the past year, now topping $2 billion, and the number of individual account holders rose 46 percent during the same period to 657,000, it points out more work still needs to be done on showing employees the advantages of such accounts.
Since it’s estimated that couples retiring today could need $260,000 — perhaps even more — to cover their health care costs during retirement, the need for a way to save just for health care expenses, aside from other retirement expenses, is becoming more urgent.
HSAs offer a tax-advantaged way to set aside more money than a retirement account alone provides — and people who have both tend to save more overall, with 2016 statistics indicating that people who had both defined contribution and HSA accounts saved on average 10.7 percent of their annual income in the retirement account. Those with just a DC account saved on average 8.2 percent in it.
People are mostly satisfied with HSAs — 80 percent say they are, while 76 percent are satisfied with the ease of using it HSA for medical expenses, 77 percent with the quality of their health care coverage and 77 percent with how the plan helps them manage their health care costs.
But that doesn’t mean they’ve got all the ins and outs figured out yet; 39 percent mistakenly believe that they’ll lose unspent HSA contributions at the end of the year. Yet unlike contributions to health flexible spending accounts (FSA), unspent contributions to HSAs roll over from year to year.
Still, employees are learning that HSAs can provide them a means of saving that’s not restricted to cash. While it’s still not common, more people are putting HSA money into investments that can then grow toward covering longer-term health expenses, but employers, says Fidelity, can do more to educate workers on such an option. Nationally, only 15 percent of all HSA assets are invested outside of cash.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Satter M. (2017 May 26). HSAs on the rise, but employees need to know more about them [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.benefitspro.com/2017/05/26/hsas-on-the-rise-but-employees-need-to-know-more-a?ref=hp-news
More Employers View HSAs as Part of Retirement Strategy
Did you know that more employers are starting to use health savings accounts as a tool for retirement? Find out more from this interesting read from Employee Benefits Advisor on how employers are utilizing HSAs in their retirement program by Paula Aven Gladych.
The health savings account market is continuing its massive growth — as well as its increasing importance to the retirement industry.
According to a survey conducted by the Plan Sponsor Council of America, more than 75% of plan sponsors “view the HSA as part of their retirement benefits strategy.”
Nearly 60% of the respondents believe HSAs should replace flexible spending accounts, and nearly three-fourths of employers think that HSAs should be open to all employees, not just those enrolled in a high-deductible health plan, according to the survey. The PSCA received 255 responses to its survey, with 181 of plan sponsors saying they sponsor an HSA for their employees.
HSAs are medical savings accounts that employees and employers can use to pay for qualifying healthcare expenses, now and into the future. It is widely acknowledged that healthcare expenses are one of the largest expenses people face in retirement, so this is one more tool individuals can use to save for their futures.
Made possible by the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, the accounts allow employees to set money aside pre-tax. Any money that isn’t spent down in a given year can be invested, just like a retirement plan. That money can be used to pay for current and future healthcare expenses.
HSAEnrollment in employer-sponsored HSA/high-deductible plans more than doubled from 5% in 2005 to 11% in 2015, but in spite of that, 6.2 million of the 22.5 million people eligible to participate in an HSA did not contribute to it, according to the PSCA survey.
In 2016, the PSCA created an HSA committee to focus on health savings accounts and their impact on employee retirement readiness and to evaluate and improve their integration with defined contribution retirement plans.
“Absent legislative action that would curtail HSA tax preferences, HSA accounts are here to stay,” says PSCA Executive Director Tony Verheyen.
According to survey respondents, about 80% of employees are eligible to participate in an employer-sponsored HSA plan, with an average account balance of $3,161. Forty percent of employers said that fewer than 25% of their participants use up their entire HSA balance each year and 35% of plans said that 26-50% of their participants use their entire balance every year.
“So many employers participating in the survey do perceive the HSA to be a vehicle for employees to accumulate savings,” the report found.
Two-thirds of employers who sponsor a health savings account program for employees say they contribute a set dollar amount to each account based on the high-deductible health plan coverage tier an employee has chosen. More than 80% of the employers who sponsor an HSA say they contribute some money to the plan. Forty percent of plans say they front load contributions at the start of the year, while 30% contribute some amount every payday.
More than half of those surveyed said they cover the cost of HSA maintenance fees for active employees and 6% said they pay them for terminated employees. Only 21% of surveyed employers expressed concern about the fiduciary liability of sponsoring an HSA-high-deductible health plan.
The Plan Sponsor Council of America is made up of employee benefit plan sponsors who work together to help improve and expand upon the employer-sponsored retirement plan system.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Gladych P. (2017 May 9). More employers view HSAs as part of retirement strategy [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/news/more-employers-view-hsas-as-part-of-retirement-strategy
10 Misconceptions About Saving for Medical Care in Retirement
Are you properly prepared for your medical costs during retirement? Take a look at this great article by Marlene Y. Satter from Employee Benefits Advisors to find out what are the top misconceptions people have about medical costs when planning for their retirement.
Retirement isn’t the only thing workers have trouble saving for; the other big gap in planning is health care.
According to a Voya Financial survey, Americans just aren’t ready to pay for the health care they might need in retirement. Their estimates of what they might need are low—when they estimate them at all, that is—and their savings are even lower.
With worries over money woes keeping people up at night—so says a CreditCards.com poll—the only worry that surpassed “having enough saved for retirement” was “health care and insurance.”
And consider, if you will, all the turmoil in the health insurance market these days, what with potential changes to—or an outright repeal of—the Affordable Care Act waiting in the wings, not to mention the skyrocketing costs of both care and coverage.
In light of all this uncertainty, it’s no wonder that the little matter of paying for health care is keeping people awake.
But, considering all that, it’s even more surprising that there are so many common misconceptions about health care, its cost and how to pay for it at large in the general population.
American workers are not just ill prepared for retirement, they’re even more ill prepared for any illness or infirmity that may come along with it.
According to research from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), a 65-year-old man would need $127,000 in savings while a 65-year-old woman would need $143,000—thanks to a longer projected lifespan—to give each of them a 90 percent chance of having enough savings to cover health care expenses in retirement.
But that doesn’t appear to have filtered its way down to U.S. workers, who are blissfully (well, maybe not so blissfully) ignorant of the mountain of bills that probably lies ahead.
While demographics play a role, there are smaller differences among some groups than one might otherwise expect. In addition, it’s also rather surprising where Americans plan to get the money to pay for whatever care they receive, and how far they think that money will stretch when it also has to pay for food, clothing, shelter and any activities or other necessities that come along with retirement.
Read on to see 10 misconceptions workers have about how and how much they think they’ll pay for medical care in retirement. As you’ll see, some generations are more prone to certain errors than others.
10. Workers just aren’t estimating how much health care will cost them in retirement.
Perhaps they’d rather not know—but according to the poll, 81 percent of Americans have not estimated the total amount health care will cost them in retirement; among them are 77 percent of boomers. Retirees haven’t estimated those costs, either; in fact, just 21 percent of them have. But that’s actually not that bad, when considering that among Americans overall, only 14 percent have actually done—or tried to do—the math.
And among those who have tried to calculate the cost, 66 percent put them at $100,000 or less while an astonishing 31 percent estimated just $25,000 or less.
9. People with just a high school education or less, and whites, are slightly more likely than those who went to college, and blacks, to have attempted to figure it out.
The great majority among all those demographic groups just aren’t looking at the numbers, with 88 percent of black respondents and 79 percent of white respondents saying they have not estimated how much money it will take to pay their medical costs throughout retirement.
And while 80 percent of those with a high school diploma or less say they haven’t run the numbers, those who spent more time in school have spent even less time doing the calculations—with 81 percent of those with some college and 82 percent of those who graduated college saying they have not estimated medical costs.
8. Millennials are the most likely to underestimate health care costs in retirement.
A whopping 74 percent of millennials are among those lowballing what they expect to spend on health care once they retire, figuring they won’t need more than $100,000—and possibly less.
Not that they really know; 85 percent haven’t actually tried to calculate their total health care expenses for retirement. But they must be believers in the amazing stretching dollar, with 42 percent planning to use general retirement savings as the primary means of paying for health expenses in retirement, excluding Medicare.
GenXers, by the way, were the most likely to guess correctly that the bill will probably be higher than $100,000—but even there, only 28 percent said so.
7. They have surprisingly unrealistic expectations about where they’ll get the money to pay for medical care.
Excluding Medicare, 34 percent intend to use their general retirement savings, such as 401(k)s, 403(b)s, pensions and IRAs, as the primary means of paying for care, while 25 percent are banking on their Social Security income, 7 percent would use health savings accounts (HSAs) and 6 percent would use emergency savings.
That last is particularly interesting, since so few people have successfully managed to set aside a sizeable emergency fund in the first place.
6. Despite their potential, HSAs just aren’t feasible for many because of their income.
HSAs do offer ways to set aside more money not just for medical bills in retirement but also to boost retirement savings overall, and come with fairly generous contribution limits. But people with lower incomes often can’t even hit the maximum for retirement accounts—so relying on an HSA might not be realistic for all but those with the highest incomes.
Yet people with lower incomes were more likely than those who made more to say HSAs would be the main way they’d pay for medical expenses. Among those who said they’d be relying on HSAs to pay for care in retirement, 5 percent of those with incomes less than $35,000 and 14 percent of those with incomes between $35,000–$50,000 said that would be the way they’d go.
Just 9 percent of those with incomes between $50,000–$75,000, 7 percent of those with incomes between $75,000–$100,000 and 9 percent of those with incomes above $100,000 chose them.
5. A few are planning on using an inheritance to pay for medical bills in retirement.
It’s probably not realistic, and there aren’t all that many, but some respondents are actually planning on an inheritance being the chief way they’ll pay for their medical expenses during retirement.
Millennials and GenXers were the most likely to say that, at 2 percent each—but they may not have considered that the money originally intended for an inheritance might end up going to pay for other things, such as caregiving or child care, and indeed much of their own retirement money could end up paying for care for elderly parents. A lot more people end up acting as caregivers—especially among the sandwich generation—and may find that relying on inheriting money from the people they’re caring for was not a realistic expectation.
4. Women don’t know, guess low.
Just 13 percent of women have gone to the trouble of estimating how much health care will cost them during retirement, but that didn’t stop 32 percent from putting that figure at $25,000 or less.
And that’s really bad news. It’s particularly important for women to be aware of the cost of health care, since not only do they not save enough for retirement to begin with—42 percent only contribute between 1–5 percent, the lowest level, compared with 34 percent of men, often thanks to lower salaries and absences from the workplace to raise children or act as caregivers—but their longer lifespans mean they’ll have more years in which to need health care and fewer options to obtain it other than by paying for it.
Men are frequently cared for by (predominantly female) caregivers at home, while women tend to outlive any family members who might be willing or able to do the same for them.
3. Men don’t know, but guess higher.
While the same percentage of women and men have not estimated their retirement health care expenses (81 percent), men were more likely than women (24 percent, compared with 15 percent) to come up with an estimate higher than $100,000.
2. The highest-income households are most likely to have tried to estimate medical cost needs during retirement.
Probably not surprisingly, households with an income of $100,000 or more were the most likely to have tried to pin a dollar figure to health care needs, with 21 percent saying they’d done so.
Households with incomes between $50,000–$75,000 were least likely to have done so, with just 11 percent of them trying to anticipate how much they’ll need.
And just because they have more money doesn’t mean their estimates were a whole lot more accurate—only 38 percent of those $100,000+ households thought they’d need more than $100,000 to see them through any needed medical care during retirement, while 59 percent—the great majority—figured they could get by on $100,000 or even less.
1. Where they live doesn’t seriously affect their estimates, although it will seriously affect their cost of care.
Among those who have tried to anticipate how much they’ll need in retirement for medical care, there’s not a huge difference among how many guessed too low—even though where they live can have a huge effect on how much they’ll end up paying, particularly for long-term care.
While the most expensive regions for LTC tend to be the northeast and the west coast, and the cheapest are the south and midwest, there’s not a great deal of variance among those who estimate they can get by on care for $100,000 or less—even if people live in one of the most expensive regions. Sixty-seven percent of those in the northeast said care wouldn’t cost more than that, while 63 percent of those in the midwest, 71 percent of those in the south and 61 percent of those in the west said the same thing.
When it came to those who said they’d need more than $100,000, 24 percent of those in the west thought they’d need that much; so did 20 percent of those in the midwest, just 18 percent of those in the northeast and 17 percent of those in the south.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Satter M. (2017 April 24). 10 misconceptions about saving for medical care in retirement [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.benefitspro.com/2017/04/24/10-misconceptions-about-saving-for-medical-care-in?ref=hp-news&page_all=1
CBO estimate of AHCA impact on employer-sponsored benefits is off the mark
Does the implementation of the AHCA have you worried about your employee benefits? Take a look at this great article from Employee Benefit News about what the implementaion of the AHCA will mean for employers by Joel Wood.
In breaking down the Congressional Budget Office’s assessment of the proposed American Health Care Act, let’s look at the impact of the AHCA on employer-sponsored plans. The CBO estimates that 2 million fewer Americans will have employer-sponsored coverage in 2020, growing to seven million by 2027. Here’s CBO’s rationale:
- The mandate penalties are eliminated, and thus many will drop.
- The tax credits are available to people with a broader range of incomes than the Obamacare credits/subsidies
- Some employers will drop coverage and increase compensation in the belief that non-group insurance is a close substitute.
These are valid points. The CBO experts are basing their estimates on sound economics and inside the constraints of their authority, and so of course we worry about any proposal that devolves employer-sponsored care. But, we also have to note that the CBO said much the same about the Affordable Care Act, which largely didn’t happen. And CBO notwithstanding, we at the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, too, feared something of a death spiral after the ACA was enacted.
The ACA’s employer penalties were very small in comparison to premiums, and it made sense that many would dump their plans, give their employees cash, and send them to the subsidized exchanges. Also, the subsidies were pretty rich — graduating out at 400% of the poverty line. That’s more than $90,000 for a family of four.
What we didn’t take into account in reference to the ACA were a number of things:
- A core assumption of the ACA was that states would all be forced to expand Medicaid to 138% of the poverty line, and the exchange subsidies would kick in above that amount. The courts struck that down and 19 (all-red) states never adopted the expansion, creating a massive donut hole.
- We underestimated how chaotic would be the rollout of Healthcare.gov.
- We knew the exchanges would be a model of adverse selection, but a “bailout” of insurance carriers through the “risk corridor” program was supposed to keep them in the game. Republicans balked, sued, and the reinsurance payments have been so lacking that most of the exchanges are currently in a “death spiral” (as described by Mark Bertolini, CEO of Aetna).
So employer-sponsored health insurance has, well, thrived since the enactment of the ACA — perhaps in spite of it, not because of it.
If the CBO is correct and seven million people lose ESI over the next decade, that’s problematic. But it ignores other opportunities that are being created through the proposed GOP bill and Trump Administration executive actions.
Employers-sponsored opportunities
Republicans propose significant expansion of HSAs that will compliment higher-deductible ESI plans. They want work-arounds for state mandates on essential health benefits, even though their goal of “buying across state lines” can’t be realized through the tricky budget reconciliation process. And, ultimately, Republicans want to realize the potential for the ACA wellness provisions that have been eviscerated through years of EEOC/ADA/GINA conflicts. That would be a big win for employers.
The most important tradeoff between the “discussion draft” of a few weeks ago and the AHCA is that GOP House leaders junked their plan to tax 10% of employee contributions for ESI plans, in favor of pushing the Cadillac tax out five more years, to 2025.
Personally, I figure I’ve got another decade left in me to lobby for this industry, and that would get me eight years along the way. That’s a terrific tradeoff in my book, especially as Ways & Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) emphasized he never intends for that tax to go into effect — it’s purely a budgetary gimmick. And, it’s a ridiculous “score” from CBO anyway. Everybody knows that no employer is going to pay that tax; they’ll work their plan design to get under the numbers.
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My conclusions at this moment in time, thus, are:
- Have we won the war among GOP leaders with respect to “hands off” of ESI while trying to solve the death-spiral problems in the individual/exchange marketplace? Not yet. We won a battle, not a war. Sadly and frustratingly, too many Republican leaders have bought into the elite conservative/libertarian economic intelligentsia that pure consumerism should drive healthcare, and that ESI is an “historic accident.” As our friend Ed Fensholt at Lockton always says, “Penicillin was an historic accident, too, but look how that turned out.”
- Was former Speaker John Boehner right recently when he said that there’s no way you can get to the requisite 51 votes in the Senate right now with this current AHCA construct? You bet he was right. If you do the House plan and defund Planned Parenthood, you lose votes of pro-choice Republicans in the Senate. If Ryan and Trump relent to the Freedom Caucus on hacking the Medicaid expansion in 2018 instead of 2020, they’ll lose votes of Republicans in Medicaid-expanded states. In any event, they probably lose the votes of Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and a number of other Republicans who view the AHCA as “Obamacare Lite” and demand a more straightforward repeal.
- Was Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) right when he said this on Face the Nation recently? “Look,” he said, “the most important thing for a person like myself who runs for office and tells the people we’re asking to hire us, ‘This is what I’ll do if I get elected.’ And then if you don’t do that, you’re breaking your word.” You bet he’s right. Republicans ran on this. They voted 60 times in the House to repeal the ACA. If they can’t do this, they can’t do tax reform, they can’t do 12 appropriations bills. Their margins for error (21 votes in the House; two in the Senate) are almost impossibly narrow, and the press hates this bill. But I wouldn’t pronounce this effort dead, by a long stretch.
Sometimes, when lobbying blank-faced Republican leaders on the importance of ESI, I feel like the old BB King lyric: “Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jivin’, too.”
But because of, or in spite of, current legislative efforts that are dominating the headlines, I feel relatively well-poised for ESI to continue to be the means through which a majority of Americans receive the health insurance they like and they want to keep. Our job is for them to keep it. Notwithstanding lots of obstacles, we will.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Wood J. (2017 March 21). CBO estimate of AHCA impact on employer-sponsored benefits is off the mark [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/cbo-estimate-of-ahca-impact-on-employer-sponsored-benefits-is-off-the-mark
How are your retirement health care savings stacking up?
Are you properly investing in your health saving account? Take a look at the this article from Benefits Pro about the importance of saving money for your healthcare by Reese Feuerman
For all ages, it's imperative to balance near-term and long-term savings goals, but the makeup of those savings goals has changed dramatically over the past 10 years.
With the continued rise in health care costs, and increased cost sharing between employers and employees, more employees and employers have been migrating to consumer-driven health care (CDH) to provide lower-cost alternatives.
With the increased adoption in these plans for employee cost savings purposes, employers have likewise realized similar cost savings to their bottom line. But what role does CDH play in the long term?
The Greatest Generation was able to rely on their pensions, Social Security, Medicaid, and the like as a means to support them in retirement for both medical and living expenses. However, as the Baby Boomers continue their journey towards retirement, reliance upon future proof retirement funds are fading into the sunset for coming generations. According to a 2015 study from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), 29% of American’s 55 and older do not have money set aside in a pension plan or alternative retirement plan.
To make matters worse, some experts are forecasting Social Security funding will be depleted by 2034, leaving even more retirees potentially without a plan. As such, Generation X and beyond must look for more creatives measures for savings to make up the difference.
In 1978, 401(k) plans were introduced to provide the workforce with a secondary means for retirement savings while also providing significant tax benefits. However, even when actively funded, with rising health care costs and a depleted Social Security system—the solution this workforce has paid into for their entire career—will not be enough.
According to Healthview Services, the average retiree couple will spend $288,000 for just health care expenses during retirement. This sum could easily consume one-third of total retiree savings. This is a contributing factor to the rise and rapid adoption of tax-advantage health accounts to supplement retirement savings. Introduced to the market in 2003, Health Savings Accounts (HSA) have provided employees with an option to set aside pre-tax funds to either cover current year health care expenses, like the familiar Flexible Spending Account (FSA), or carry over the funds year-over-year to pay for medical expenses later or during retirement. The pretax money employees are able to set aside in these accounts to cover health care expenses, will over time, be on par with retirement savings contributions, such as a 401(k) and 403(b), because of increasing costs and triple-tax savings.
It is important for consumers to understand these retirement options and how they could be leveraged for greater financial wealth. As a result, the Health Care Stack, an analysis authored by ConnectYourCare, acts as a life savings model and illustrates the amount of pretax money consumers can contribute for both their lifestyle and health expenses in retirement.
For illustrative purposes, according to current IRS guidelines, the average American under the age of 50 could set aside up to $24,750 each year pre-tax for retirement to cover their health care and living expenses. In this example, if a worker in his or her 30s starts to set aside the maximum contributions (based on IRS guidelines) for HSA contributions, assuming a rate of return of 3%, they would have $330,000 saved in their HSA to cover health care expenses once they reach the retirement age of 65. This number could be even greater if President Trump’s administration passes any number of proposed bills to increase the HSA contribution limits to match the maximum out-of-pocket expenses included in high deductible health plans. This allocation would not only cover average medical expenses, but also provide a triple-tax advantage for consumers from now through retirement.
In addition to the long-term retirement goals, the yearly pre-tax savings may be even greater if notional accounts are factored in, with approved IRS limits of a $2,600 per year maximum for Flexible Spending Accounts, $5,000 per year maximum for Dependent Care FSA, and $6,120 per year maximum for commuter plans. This equals $38,470 (or $44,820 if HSA contributions increase) of pre-tax contributions that consumers could save by offsetting the tax burden and could invest towards retirement.
For those consumers over the age of 50, the savings potential is even greater as they can contribute to a post retirement catch-up for their 401K plans equaling a total of $24,000, plus they may take advantage of the $6,750 HSA savings, as well as the additional $1,000 catch up. If certain proposed bills are passed, the increase could be $38,100 a year that they could set aside, in pre-tax assets, for retirement.
Not only will an individual’s expenses be covered, but there are other benefits brought forth by proper planning, including the potential to reach ones retirement savings goals early. Let’s say that after meeting with a licensed financial investor it was determined that an individual needed $1.8 million in order to retire, and according to national averages, close to $288,000 to cover health care costs.
Given the proper investment strategy around contributions to both retirement and HSA plans, an individual could - theoretically -save enough to meet their retirement investment needs by the age of 60 for both lifestyle and health care expense coverage, if they started making careful investments in their 20s (assuming the worker is making $50,000 per year with a 3% annual increase).
In comparison, under current proposals, which include the increased HSA limits, retirement savings could be achieved even earlier with the coverage threshold being at 57 for the average worker. This is a tremendous opportunity to transform retirement investment programs for all American workers who would otherwise be left on their own. Talk about the American dream!
While there is not a one-size fits all strategy, it is important for everyone to understand their options and see how these pretax accounts outlined in the Health Care Stack play an important consideration in ones future retirement planning.
Taking the time now to fully understand tax-favored benefit accounts will provide him or her with the appropriate coverage to enjoy life well into their golden years. Retirement is just around the corner, are you ready?
See the original article Here.
Source:
Feuerman (2017 March 02). How are your retirement health care savings stacking up?[Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.benefitspro.com/2017/03/02/how-are-your-retirement-health-care-savings-stacki?ref=hp-in-depth
HSAs could play bigger role in retirement planning
Did you know that ACA repeal could have and effect on health savings plans (HRA)? Read this interesting article from Benefits Pro about how the repeal of the ACA might affect your HRAs by Marlene Y. Satter
With the repeal of the Affordable Care Act looming, one surprising factor in paying for health care could see its star rise higher on the horizon—the retirement planning horizon, that is. That’s the Health Savings Account—and it’s likely to become more prominent depending on what replaces the ACA.
HSAs occupy a larger role in some of the proposed replacements to the ACA put forth by Republican legislators, and with that greater exposure comes a greater likelihood that more people will rely on them more heavily to get them through other changes.
For one thing, they’ll need to boost their savings in HSAs just to pay the higher deductibles and uncovered expenses that are likely to accompany the ACA repeal.
But for another—and here’s where it gets interesting—they’ll probably become a larger part of retirement planning, since they provide a number of benefits already that could help boost retirement savings.
Contributions are already deductible from gross income, but under at least one of the proposals to replace the ACA, contributions could come with refundable tax credits—a nice perk.
Another proposal would allow HSA funds to pay for premiums on proposed new state health exchanges without a tax penalty for doing so—also beneficial. And a third would expand eligibility to have HSAs, which would be helpful.
But whether these and other possible enhancements to HSAs come to pass, there are already plenty of reasons to consider bolstering HSA savings for retirement. As workers try to navigate their way through the uncertainty that lies ahead, they’ll probably rely even more on the features these plans already offer—such as the ability to leave funds in the account (if not needed for higher medical expenses) to roll over from year to year and to grow for the future, and the fact that interest on HSA money is tax free.
But possibly the biggest benefit to an HSA for retirement is the fact that funds invested in one grow tax free as well. If you can leave the money there long enough, you can grow a sizeable nest egg against potential future health expenses or even the purchase of a long-term care policy. And, at age 65, you’re no longer penalized if you withdraw funds for nonapproved medical expenses.
And if you don’t use the money for medical expenses in retirement, but are past 65, you can use it for living expenses to supplement your 401(k). In that case, you’ll have to pay taxes on it, but there’s no penalty—it just works much like a tax-deferred situation from a regular retirement account.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Satter M. (2017 January 16). HSAs could play bigger role in retirement planning [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.benefitspro.com/2017/01/16/hsas-could-play-bigger-role-in-retirement-planning?ref=hp-news
Rising Health Care Costs: Driving Factor Causing Changes to Employer Health Plans, SHRM Survey Finds
Get the latest trends in healthcare benefits in the survey conducted by SHRM.
Original Post from SHRM.org on July 13, 2016
- Ninety-six percent of organizations offered some type of health care plan to their employees.
- Mail order prescriptions have gone down by 6 percent over the past five years.
- Eighty-five percent of organizations offer mental health coverage, compared to 91 percent just last year.
- Organizations were evenly split as to whether they offered coverage to spouses who had access to health care coverage through another employer, or if there was a spousal surcharge for health care coverage.
- Several new health-related items added to the survey this year: health care services such as diagnosis, treatment or prescriptions provided by photo or video (23 percent), high deductible health plan not linked to an HSA or a health reimbursement account (HRA) (17 percent), genetic testing coverage for diseases such as cancer (12 percent) and a smoking surcharge for health care plans (20 percent).
Wellness Study Touts CFPs
Original post benefitspro.com
Only 22 percent of employees tracked in Financial Finesse’s 2015 year in review report being on track for retirement.
The provider of workplace financial wellness programs says that is a slight improvement from 2014. Of those that are not prepared, 81 percent have never used a financial calculator to estimate their retirement preparedness.
While the number of retirement-ready workers remains bleak, those participants who have repeated engagements with planning tools, and financial planners, are showing marked improvement in retirement readiness.
Enhancements in retirement workplace plan design, like auto-enrollment and auto-escalation, and technology that addresses asset allocation are vital tools for addressing workers’ retirement preparedness.
But the Financial Finesse’s data suggests those tools alone are not enough.
A good portion of the review is committed to comparing retirement readiness of those savers who engage in live interactions with financial planners.
About half of participants that had five or more interactions with a certified financial planner report being on track for retirement.
Levels of confidence drop in lock step with the number of interactions with financial planners: 32 percent of those with three to four interactions say they are on track to retire with adequate savings; 31 percent with one to two interactions believe as much; and only 21 participants who only interact with online planning tools say they are on track to retire with enough savings.
Interacting with CFPs also translates to higher confidence with investments and how they are allocated, as 64 percent of participants with five or more interactions say they are invested appropriately, compared to only 42 percent who use an online planning tool but don’t seek live financial advice.
Overall, retirement readiness is lacking across generations. Last year, only 30 percent of baby boomers say they are on track to reach their retirement goal, which was unchanged from the previous year.
Only 22 percent of Gen Xers and 16 percent of millennials said they are on track to retire well.
Debt is a major obstacle for boomers’ retirement readiness, the report says, as 42 percent of financially distressed boomers have no plan in place to pay off their debt, and increase from the previous year.
Participation rates in workplace retirement plans was high across all age groups, as even 73 percent of workers under age 30 report being enrolled in a plan; 91 percent of pre-retirees participate in their workplace plan.
Despite high rates of enrollment, financial planners and participants sited insufficient retirement savings as the top financial vulnerability for all age groups.
Bill Would Allow Medicare-Eligible Retirees to Keep HSA Contributions
Original post businessinsurance.com
Health savings accounts are surging in popularity — and that can lead to some complications for older workers who enroll in Medicare.
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are offered to workers enrolled in high-deductible health insurance plans. The accounts are used primarily to meet deductible costs; employers often contribute and workers can make pretax contributions up to $3,350 for individuals, and $5,640 for families; the dollars can be invested and later spent tax-free to meet healthcare expenses.
Twenty-four percent of U.S. workers were enrolled in high-deductible health plans last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation - and 15% of them were in plans coupled with an HSA. That compares with 6% using HSA-linked plans as recently as 2010. Assets in HSA accounts rose 25% last year, and the number of accounts rose 22%, according to a report by Devenir, an HSA investment adviser and consulting firm.
But as more employees work past traditional retirement age, some sticky issues arise for HSA account holders tied to enrollment in Medicare. The key issue: HSAs can only be used alongside qualified high-deductible health insurance plans. The minimum deductible allowed for HSA-qualified accounts this year is $1,300 for individual coverage ($2,600 for family coverage). Medicare is not considered a high-deductible plan, although the Part A deductible this year is $1,288 (for Part B, it is $166).
That means that if a worker - or a spouse covered on the employer's plan - signs up for Medicare coverage, the worker must stop contributing to the HSA, although withdrawals can continue.
The normal enrollment age for Medicare is 65, but people who are still working at that point often stay on the health plans of their employers (more on that below). In certain situations, the worker or a retired spouse might enroll for some Medicare benefits. Moreover, if the worker or spouse claims Social Security, that can trigger an automatic enrollment in Medicare Part A and B.
That would require the worker to stop contributing to the HSA - and the contributions actually would need to stop six months before that Social Security claim occurs. That is because Medicare Part A is retroactive for up to six months, assuming the enrollee was eligible for coverage during those months. Failing to do that can lead to a tax penalty.
"The Medicare problem is a basic flaw in the way HSAs are designed," said Jody Dietel, chief compliance officer of WageWorks Inc, a provider of HSA and other consumer-directed benefit plans to employers.
Recognizing the problem, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch and Representative Erik Paulsen proposed legislation last month that would allow HSA-eligible seniors enrolled in Medicare Part A (only) to continue to contribute to their HSAs.
The HSA complication is bound to arise more often as the huge baby boom generation retires, and as high-deductible insurance linked to HSA accounts continues to gain popularity among employers. High-deductible plans come with lower premiums - the average premium for individual coverage in a high-deductible health plan coupled with a savings option last year was $5,567 (the employee share was $868), KFF reports. By contrast, the comparable average premium for a preferred provider organization was $6,575 (with workers contributing $1,145).
Some experts also pitch HSAs as a tax-advantaged way to save to meet healthcare costs in retirement - although the HSA's main purpose is to help people meet current-year deductible costs, and employers often make an annual contribution for that purpose.
So far, there is not much evidence that large accumulations are building in the accounts. The average account total balance last year was $14,035, according to Devenir. The limits on contributions are one reason for that.
Deciding to delay a Medicare enrollment depends on your individual circumstances.
If you work for an employer with fewer than 20 workers, Medicare usually is the primary insurer at age 65, so failing to sign up would mean losing much of your coverage - hardly worth the tax advantage of continued HSA contributions. If you work for a larger employer, Medicare coverage is secondary, so a delayed Medicare filing is more feasible - so long as you or a spouse are not enrolled in Social Security. (Also make sure that the account in question is an HSA and not a Health Reimbursement Account - the latter is not a savings account and does not bring the Medicare enrollment problem into play.)
"We usually advise people to talk it over with a tax expert - it's more of a tax issue than a health insurance question," said Casey Schwarz, senior counsel for education and federal policy at the Medicare Rights Center, a nonprofit advocacy and consumer rights group.