Large Health Savings Accounts: A Step toward Tax Neutrality for Health Care
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Michael F. Cannon
The creation of tax-free health savings accounts presents a new opportunity to reduce the distortions created by federal tax preferences for health-related expenditures that ultimately could help eliminate those distortions. This paper proposes changes to current law that would allow most workers to receive the full amount that they and their employer spend on their health benefits as a tax-free cash contribution to the worker's health savings account. Restructuring the exclusion for employer-sponsored health benefits in this way would enable more individuals to obtain health insurance that matches their preferences, would increase efficiency in the health care sector, and could reduce inequities created by the exclusion. These changes also offer a means of limiting the currently unlimited tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health benefits that may be more politically feasible than past proposals.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Article
- Estimating the Impact of Medical Innovation: A Case Study of HIV Antiretroviral Treatments
- Hospital Quality and Selective Contracting: Evidence from Kidney Transplantation
- Large Health Savings Accounts: A Step toward Tax Neutrality for Health Care
- Consumer-Directed Health Plans and Health Savings Accounts: Have They Worked for Small Business?
- Labor Market Consequences of State Mental Health Parity Mandates
- The Reality of SCHIP and Uninsureds: Do SCHIP Mandatory Wait Periods Increase the Uninsured Rolls?
- Dynamic Cost-Effectiveness: A More Efficient Reimbursement Criterion
- State Health Insurance Regulations and the Price of High-Deductible Policies
- The Utilization of Medicines beyond Patent Expiration
- Explanations for Persistent Nursing Shortages
- Quality Effect of Early Discharge of Maternity Patients: Does Hospital Specialization Matter?
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Article
- Estimating the Impact of Medical Innovation: A Case Study of HIV Antiretroviral Treatments
- Hospital Quality and Selective Contracting: Evidence from Kidney Transplantation
- Large Health Savings Accounts: A Step toward Tax Neutrality for Health Care
- Consumer-Directed Health Plans and Health Savings Accounts: Have They Worked for Small Business?
- Labor Market Consequences of State Mental Health Parity Mandates
- The Reality of SCHIP and Uninsureds: Do SCHIP Mandatory Wait Periods Increase the Uninsured Rolls?
- Dynamic Cost-Effectiveness: A More Efficient Reimbursement Criterion
- State Health Insurance Regulations and the Price of High-Deductible Policies
- The Utilization of Medicines beyond Patent Expiration
- Explanations for Persistent Nursing Shortages
- Quality Effect of Early Discharge of Maternity Patients: Does Hospital Specialization Matter?
