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Comment by nodesocket | Hacker News Reader

HSA limit is $4,300 annual, how does that protect against total ruin? That's a hospital trip in a Uber and a few tylenol.

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As @dragonwriter said, the HSA doesn't protect you against ruin, the linked high-deductible insurance does. You use the HSA for your ordinary medical expenses and get a nice tax discount from it. The HSA is also acts as a retirement investment account.

So, if you're young with minimal healthcare needs, you can get multiple benefits:

1) High-deductible insurance that's (relatively) cheap but still protects you against financial ruin

2) After 10 years of maximum contributions, you'll have ~$10K in cash for emergencies and about $33K in retirement investment contributions.

Thanks for clarification, but I believe my private-market health insurance plan even though high deductible is not eligible for a HSA. I believe you have to use a healthcare.gov plan to be eligible for HSA which are significantly more expensive. So, not sure the benefits are there if your monthly premiums are 25-40% more expensive (HC.gov + HSA) than a private-market plan.

All health insurance plans in the US are private-market.* You may be confusing ACA-compliant plans (private insurance that's allowed to be listed on healthcare.gov and is eligible for subsidies) with non-ACA-compliant plans (not allowed to be listed on healthcare.gov, not eligible for subsidies).

Be careful about non-ACA-compliant plans. They're cheaper because they engage in sketchy behaviors that leave you without coverage when you need it.

*Well, except Medicaid, Medicare, etc.

You’re correct. I should be saying ACA compliant plans vs non-ACA instead of “private”. I have a non-ACA plan thus why I can’t have a HSA.

They are probably using “HSA from the government marketplace” as shorthand for “a combination of an HSA with a HSA-eligible health plan from the state ACA marketplace”; the HSA doesn’t protect you from total ruin, thr linked high-deductible health plan should.

One emergency visit is like 10k here now. Best of luck.

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