The House has expand­ed the poten­tial for HSA, FSA and HRA – an alpha­bet soup of pos­si­bil­i­ties.    Some Democ­rats have argued against expan­sion (as they did against the incep­tion of these pro­grams), claim­ing that they do not help the work­ing class, but a num­ber of them vot­ed for approval of this new bill, which passed 277 to 142.  The changes:

  • Over the counter drugs may now be pur­chased through all three of these plans
  • Men­stru­al care prod­ucts are also now qual­i­fied med­ical expens­es for reimbursement
  • Gym mem­ber­ships and the cost to par­tic­i­pate in cer­tain phys­i­cal exer­cise pro­grams will be treat­ed as qual­i­fied med­ical expens­es to a lim­it of $500 per year sin­gle or $1,000 joint
  • HSA con­tri­bu­tions will be raised to $6,650 sin­gle and $13,300 for families
  • Work­ing seniors par­tic­i­pat­ing in Medicare Part A may now con­tin­ue to con­tribute to HSA
  • Spous­es over age 55 may also make “catch up” con­tri­bu­tions to an HSA
  • Indi­vid­u­als may con­tribute to an HSA even if they are in an FSA
  • At employer’s dis­cre­tion, par­tic­i­pant may roll over unused FSA bal­ance to an HSA (though this would be capped at $2,650 indi­vid­ual and $5,300 for families)
  • Health FSA bal­ances could be car­ried over to the fol­low­ing year (max­i­mum 3 x the annu­al FSA con­tri­bu­tion limit)
  • Health plans can now pro­vide “first dol­lar” cov­er­age up to $250 ($500 for family)
  • A Direct Pri­ma­ry Care ser­vice can be con­sid­ered as a health plan for reimbursement
  • Employ­er may offer free or dis­count­ed med­ical ser­vices with­out vio­lat­ing HSA rules