Reverse Incentive

Articles — Wed, 20 Oct 2004 00:00:00 -0400

In response to a question about the cause of rising health care costs in last week's domestic policy debate, President Bush blamed the rise on a lack of consumer involvement and then declared his support for Health Savings Accounts. On the stump, he frequently trumpets these acounts, known as HSAs, as a way to "own your own health care." Yet under the pretext of restraining health care costs by empowering consumers, HSAs could have precisely the reverse effect. Rather than causing patients to be more judicious with their medical spending, they could facilitate the growing crisis of medical debt.

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Reverse Incentive