Legislation authored by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), which would allow Health Care Sharing Ministries members to use Health Savings Accounts without purchasing a high-deductible health plan, was recently featured in U.S. News & World Report.
“In plain English, the one-sentence Kelly bill would allow millions of people of faith to save tax-free for their medical expenses,” the “Health Care Heaven” article stated. “It would do this by opening up the popular Health Savings Accounts program to hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been inadvertently shut out of it because of their religious practice. Specifically, the bill would amend the tax code to treat membership in a health care sharing ministry as equivalent to owning a high-deductible health plan, for purposes of having an HSA.”
Health Care Sharing Ministries are religious non-profit associations, serving hundreds of thousands on households across the nation, which choose to share medical expenses, as part of their belief that individuals and families should bear the primary responsibility of paying for their own health care. Under current law, the ministries are already recognized as valid insurance alternatives. They cannot currently offer HSAs, which are only available to taxpayers who purchase high-deductible health plans.
“An HSA is a tax-favored savings vehicle first created in 2003 and today enjoyed by more than 15 million Americans,” the article said. “With one, you owe less in taxes, because contributions to the account reduce your taxable income… . But there’s a problem, and this is the reason for Kelly’s bill: To qualify for an HSA, you have to have a high-deductible health plan, which by definition is insurance. Millions of Americans decline to carry insurance for religious or ethical reasons. These Americans can never qualify for an HSA. It’s not that they’re insurance slackers or free riders; they just choose to provide for their medical expenses in a different way. Kelly’s bill would fix this problem by allowing those who participate in a recognized health care sharing ministry to have an HSA.”
The article was published in the Aug. 21 edition of U.S. News & World Report.
“Health Savings Accounts and health care sharing are naturally complementary – a match made in heaven,” the article concluded. “In uniting the two concepts, Kelly has done something astonishing. He has come up with a non-partisan, non-ideological, non-controversial health care reform that would actually make the world better.”