Republican pitches health savings accounts 'on steroids' that Americans could use to buy insurance — and steak

Amid the current Obamacare fight plaguing Congress Rep Eric Burlison R-Mo envisions a new kind of effort that could help users purchase wellbeing insurance and steak similar to healthcare savings accounts HSAs This new product would basically be a super HSA on steroids connected to a cafeteria plan that s connected to charitable donations Burlison stated HOUSE GOP SPLITS OVER OBAMACARE FIX AS COSTS POISED TO SPIKE FOR MILLIONS Imagine instead of getting your insurance through your employer you go out and create your own account We'll call it a MAHA account OK And in that account your employer would then deposit the money that they would normally pay to subsidize your premium Burlison announced referring to the Make America Healthy Again slogan used by the health-focused wing of the GOP Burlison s proposal which follows calls from President Donald Trump to reroute federal dollars for robustness insurance assistance straight to policyholders would require a complete overhaul of how HSAs in the present work His proposal is also emblematic of efforts to eliminate current agenda restrictions Republicans believe limit consumer choice and flexibility when it comes to healthcare Under their current framework HSAs provide users with a tax-free account that can be set up with a bank or insurance company An HSA is a tax-exempt trust or custodial account you set up with a qualified HSA trustee to pay or reimburse certain curative expenses you incur the IRS states Every year the IRS puts out a list of expenses HSA holders can use their accounts for These can include anything from massage therapy guns to Warby Parker glasses The list at the moment excludes fitness insurance BIPARTISAN DEAL ON OBAMACARE SUBSIDIES FADES AS REPUBLICANS PUSH HSA PLANBurlison believes that by eliminating that restriction his new accounts could help users make more careful decisions about their policies and give users a way to find alternatives to plans offered under the Affordable Care Act ACA also known as Obamacare From that account then you can pick any insurance product you want to buy So if you want to buy a state-sponsored plan if you want to buy an ACA plan I wouldn't buy an ACA plan because there's so a great number of other better products out there Burlison commented But in additional to healthcare he believes the accounts restrictions should be used to incentivize better health-centered decisions through the accounts tax-exempt status We want to encourage people to be healthy by letting them purchase healthy food protein produce Burlison stated Imagine you take your card you go to the grocery store and you know that the money that you put in that card was pre-tax money and now you can go and buy steak or go buy chicken go buy lettuce whatever you want as long as it's unprocessed healthy food We're encouraging people to be healthy and to eat healthy Burlison noted that what he s envisioning goes well beyond the current structure of HSAs and would likely require the creation of a comprehensively new kind of account SCHUMER UNVEILS DEMOCRATS' OBAMACARE FIX PLAN LIKELY DEAD IN THE WATER At the end of the day this is such a new concept that I think it's presumably best to just leave HSAs intact and create this new product Burlison reported Burlison s idea on HSAs is just one of several ideas Republicans have floated as an increasing number of lawmakers have needed to address rising healthcare costs while also balancing questions about administration involvement in subsidizing those costs