I am the “money person” at my work too (there’s 3 of us) and I chose to offer HSA and traditional account types. I may have posted this in that previous thread but here it is anyway…
The traditional insurance plan is for my partner and his wife and baby. It’s about $800/mo and he says it’s very good for what they need.
My co-worker and I have $4500 deductible HSAs. The reason we got the HSA plans in the first place was to save money, and we (as a company) agreed that the lower monthly costs would benefit the company and whenever the company had extra money, some cash would go into the HSA or whenever one of us needed money put in, the company would put money in. Otherwise, there’s really not much money in the HSAs.
We pay about $80/mo for my co-worker (30, male, single) and quite a bit more for me - $200 because I’m baby-makin’-age (28).
We chose this plan for us because we just never go to the doctor.
Here’s some pros and cons:
PROS
It saves the company a lot of money in health care. No way we could afford 3*$800/mo
The way we work it, my health care is basically “free” - if I need something done, I make sure I put some company money in the account. I never have to spend any out-of-pocket money on anything.
Interest is awesome, like 4.3%
It’s really easy to use the debit card.
We still get the benefit of insurance discounts - the $ we spend a month on our plan does help defer costs.
I don’t feel like I am stuck using in-network doctors. I can go anywhere and get treated and just put it on my card (this does cost more, of course…but like I said, not my pocket…)
That money is ours forever. Unlike FSA’s (I think), it just rolls over to the next year.
CONS:
As an employer, it kills me that the only way I am able to put money in my employee’s accounts is to write them a check in their name. They could very easily cash the check and not put it in their HSA. I called the bank that manages the accounts and spoke to a dozen people and they agreed this does suck but there’s nothing they can do. My workaround is that I can now email the nice branch manager lady at my local branch and have her make transfers from our account to the HSA accounts (the HSA accounts happen to be at the same bank as our business accounts - YMMV)
Sometimes the company doesn’t have money to put in my account. Recently I needed $1400 of dental work done and we did not have $1400 in the bank. I had to have money transferred over from our line of credit instead.
At the beginning, the bank that managed our accounts was seriously clueless about what HSAs really were. There was also a middleman company involved somehow. Recently, things changed, the middleman got kicked out, and everyone at the bank is MUCH more hip to the HSA.
If I ever get really sick, I need to come up with $4500. (I hate to say this but I decided on this deductible because I know I have financially stable parents who would help me out)
Anyway, I like HSAs as an option, as an employee because I am young and healthy and I don’t need to go to the doctor much. I definitely feel protected.
I like them as an option as an employer too, because I like people to be able to use them. As the ONLY option they would probably suck. But they’re a great alternative to traditional plans.