Question:
As the cost of traditional medicine and health insurance keeps skyrocketing the benefits of alternative medicine is becoming more mainstream to the American consumer. The consumer is looking for alternatives in wellness as well as alternative healing for major illness. The problem with the use of non-traditional medicine has been that traditional health insurance doesn't recognize these treatments as an allowable expense for reimbursement. In the Health Reform Act of 1997 Congress passed a law that does give the consumer some options in the kind of treatment one receives. The consumer can use dollars that were normally used to fund insured health benefits and self direct these funds on a tax advantaged bases to be used in a more broad menu of alternative healing. The new funding vehicle for non-traditional, as well as traditional, medicine is the Medical Savings Account (MSA). The MSA is one of the best tools available to bring some responsibility in how we spend our health dollars. The contributions to the MSA are deductible and the moneys that are taken out of the account to fund medical expenses are distributed on a tax-free basis. The consumer has a wide range of choices on what is an allowable medical cost. Acupuncture, Chiropractic, massage, healing arts, counseling, and all traditional medicine are allowable expenses that can be reimbursed through the MSA. The great thing about the MSA is if you don't use the money in the account it continues to accumulate and at age 59 Ѕ you can spend the money on anything you want without penalty. As you can imagine, there are some restrictions to the MSA. There is a limit as to how much you can put into the account and the plan must be used in conjunction with an approved high deductible insurance plan. For and individual with a $1,500 deductible you can put $975 a year in the MSA and for a family with the same deductible you can put $2,250. The amount has a relationship to the deductible that you choose i.e. an individual can put up to 65% of deductible in the MSA and a family can but 75% of deductible in the MSA. If you take the money out of the account prior to age 59 Ѕ then there is a 15% penalty and you must also pay ordinary income tax on the proceeds. The surprising reality is that the combine amount you deposit in the MSA and the premium that you pay for the high deductible insurance is usually less or the same as the premium you would pay with traditional low deductible or HMO plans. Basically if you are paying $150 per month for a traditional plan with the MSA and high deductible insurance you would spend about $75 per month on the insurance and then put $75 per month in the MSA. So even in the worst case scenario i.e. you had a major claim, the maximum out of pocket you would have is $600 ($1,500 deductible - $900 (in MSA) = $600). And the great news is if you are like most people you never use your insurance and you have $900 plus interest in the MSA (some MSA let you invest in mutual funds so the interest you make can very). Or you have $900, that you can deduct from your taxes and spend tax free, on alternative medicine and healing. MSA are not for everyone, but if you want to have some responsibility and freedom in your health care choices this is one of the best solutions.

Answer: I was very interested in the MSA; however, I found that the companieswho offered this type of policy did not have thorough coverage ofpregnancy. As my husband and I want to have children soon, we weredisappointed to find that reading the details of the policy left usrealizing that many complications of pregnancy (which could be veryexpensive and not always treatable in alternative fashions) were notcovered by the companies offering MSAs. If you have other informationon such policies with thorough coverage of pregnancy and all itpotential complications, I'd love to know.