HSA-Eligible Plans Are Widely Available In Obamacare Exchanges

Paul Howard and Yevgeniy Feyman of the Manhattan Institute have conducted a thorough examination of plans available on Obamacare’s exchanges:

The report finds that, far from becoming obsolete under the ACA, high-deductible plans are widely available — 98 percent of uninsured Americans have access to at least one HSA-eligible plan. Moreover, these plans also make up about 25 percent of total offerings on Obamacare exchanges. We also found that they remain significantly less expensive than traditional plan designs, offering savings of about 14 percent, on average.

However, we must also recall that Obamacare exchanges encourage plans to compete by attracting the healthy and deterring the sick form applying for coverage. So, we should be careful about concluding that Obamacare’s HSA-eligible plans are really consumer-driven plans. Health insurers may be offering them as a method of selecting less expensive risks.

Read the entire column at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.