That combination makes the HSA a great way to put away money for medical expenses during retirement, when it can be used for long-term care and Medicare premiums and co-pays.
To establish an HSA account, you must have a high-deductible health plan that qualifies under the HSA rules.
You can fund an HSA account even if you contribute to a 401(k) or other retirement plan and even if your income is too high to fund a deductible IRA. Unlike some retirement plans for small businesses and the self-employed, an HSA can be funded (and deducted from other income) even if you do not show a profit from your business.
Health insurers are going to have to offer HSA options at a reasonable price.
FORBES: Health Savings Accounts Will Survive ObamaCare -- At Least For Now
Unlike a pre-tax healthcare flexible spending account, where you forfeit any unused balance at the end of the year under the use-it-or-lose-it rule, you can roll over any unused balance with an HSA, building a tax-free healthcare retirement kitty.
FORBES: What If You Use Your Health Savings Debit Card For Take-Out?
Unlike a flexible spending account, an HSA is an account you don't have to tap into.
If you are healthy, or just know how to shop around for cheap doctors, the HSA could leave you a lot better off in both group and individual plans.
Contributions that come in electronically from the IRS are counted in the year that they are received, so directing your 2012 tax refund into your HSA will count as a 2013 contribution.
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You put tax-deductible money into an HSA, same as you would into an IRA. The HSA is coupled with a health insurance policy with a high deductible--and the amount you can put into the account is exactly equal to the deductible on the insurance, up to a limit.
If you overfund your HSA, you must pay a 6% excise tax on excess contributions, although you can avoid the excess contribution penalty if you withdraw the excess contribution and earnings by the due date of your tax return, including extensions, for that year and report the earnings as income.
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Like the HSA, you can contribute to a FSA using your gross pay making the contributions tax free.
FORBES: Comparing Health Savings And Flexible Spending Accounts
For the right customer an HSA can save thousands of dollars a year.
Like a 401(k) retirement account, the HSA is yours to keep.
FORBES: What If You Use Your Health Savings Debit Card For Take-Out?
Now, anything else at this point is pure speculation, since we only know about Samsung's HSA membership from the appearance of its logo on a relevant slide at AMD's keynote speech at IFA, and there's no official word on Samsung's intentions.
ENGADGET: Samsung slips into AMD's HSA party, may seek parallel processing boost for Exynos
When I was elected governor of Indiana five years ago, I asked that a consumer-directed health insurance option, or Health Savings Account (HSA), be added to the conventional plans then available to state employees.
Qualcomm and Samsung became Founder members of the HSA Foundation, adding their support to AMD's vision of delivering a common hardware standard for heterogeneous computing.
For example, a 2012 study from the Rand Corporation, a policy research institute, found that families with consumer-directed health coverage, like HSA plans, spent an average of 21 percent less the first year after switching from traditional coverage.
FORBES: Health Savings Accounts Will Survive ObamaCare -- At Least For Now
One of the dirty little secrets in health insurance is that lots of health insurers offer an HSA plan, but price it so high that the more expensive, comprehensive coverage looks like a better deal.
FORBES: Health Savings Accounts Will Survive ObamaCare -- At Least For Now
And a long list of companies, including at least 33 health insurers and Fidelity Investments, are eagerly eyeing the HSA market.
Both employers and individuals can contribute to an individual's HSA. HSA monies can be used for the purchase of long-term-care insurance, which will be a huge benefit to ever older baby boom-ers.
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