Health care stethescope

That other retirement account: Financial planning for HSAs

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) may be the best deal out there, if you can get it. All of us like to beat the tax man, right? HSAs are what’s known as triple tax free: you get a deduction when you put money into the account, the account grows tax free, and as long as you make withdrawals for allowable health care expenses (pretty easy to do), you don’t pay any tax on that either. They’re like a traditional IRA or 401k going in, and a Roth coming out.
But like many good things, there are a few problems and things to watch out for:
1) I’ve probably repeated this for the millionth time now, but you don’t have to pay yourself back for the medical expenses in the year you spent the money. You can accumulate the receipts (and carefully file them so you can find them) and withdraw them in any year, as in when you actually retire. You’ll have to be able to pay your deductible and out of pocket costs out of pocket, but if these are fairly low, you can keep the HSA invested.
2) As with every financial account, watch the fees. Some accounts ding you heavily if you don’t keep a minimum balance. Some charge you a monthly fee. Some employers will pay fees while you’re employed with them, but if you leave they stop paying the fees and the account starts getting bites out of it. If this is the case, you can rollover your HSA into a servicer with different (hopefully, better) rules.
3) It doesn’t do you any good to park it in a savings account paying half a percent. In this case, woohoo it’s growing tax free. But the growth is infinitesimal. You want an HSA that allows you to transfer the bulk to a brokerage, or at least invest in mutual funds. Even if you still work for the same employer as when you deposited the funds, you can rollover the account (or most of it) to a provider of your own choosing. Be sure you carefully check fees and options at your current account, and at the one you are thinking of opening.
4) If you are working with an investment advisor, you may want to consider whether the HSA should be invested as part of your overall portfolio strategy. If it’s going to be untapped for years, it should be managed to build wealth.

Once you’re retired, it’s probably a good idea not to hoard that HSA. If you leave it to your spouse, it becomes their HSA. But for any other heir, it’s a lump sum distribution that they will have to pay taxes on.

So, how do you use it up? Well, of course you can submit those hoarded medical expenses you’ve saved. You can also use it to pay premiums for long term care insurance, premiums for Medicare Part B and Part D (drug), vision and dental care not covered by Medicare supplement insurance, and any copays and deductibles. You cannot use it to pay supplemental or Medigap premiums.

Since these accounts do not usually grow extremely large, it seems to me that it would be pretty easy to use it up during a normal retirement. It’s a nice way to build up a war chest for unexpected medical expenses that crash retirement budgets. Too bad I can’t use it for veterinary bills.

If the employment picture is so great, why are people unhappy?

Don’t believe everything the President tells you. In fact, it’s a generally accepted principle that for anything he says, the opposite is true. Which is really chilling when he announces that we have the best employment and economic picture, well, since forever.
That’s not the felt experience of nearly every client (or family member, or friend) that I see. Although most people I see do have a job, I see certain factors that paint a far less rosy picture:

• Even if you have a job, you’re scared that it may evaporate. Corporate and institutional loyalty to employees is long gone. People definitely get fired at will, or on a whim.• If you’re young, you’re expendable. They can definitely find someone with your (limited) skills.
• If you’re old, you’re also expendable. They can definitely find someone younger for far less, and who cares about your experience. Your skills are probably out of date anyway.
• Ha-ha on worker protections. Do you really think this administration is going to go full throttle on discrimination claims, disability accommodations, or workers’ rights?
• You probably don’t have a union to protect you. Somehow employees were convinced that unions weren’t for “professionals” and that union dues would send them into poverty. Being on your own with no backup is certainly worth it, right? To the employer, that is.
• If you just graduated, you may feel hopeless about finding a job at all, and therefore aren’t counted as in the labor market. Congratulations if that $120K-$250K you just spent got you any services at all from your school’s Career Services office.
• The gig economy has infected even so-called full time, in demand jobs. Staffing companies have appeared like cucarachas in the so-called in-demand fields like health care and computer services. They may offer you a tiny bit better hourly rate (and it’s always hourly, not a salary), but your benefits are non-existent, they probably aren’t going to contribute to any retirement plan, your paid days off may not exist, and you’re very likely to be held to unreasonably high “productivity” standards. You’re working for Uber, whether you know it or not. So yeah, I guess you’re in demand.
• We have a miniscule social safety net nowadays. Social Security is unlikely to be anywhere near enough to cover expenses. You’re a unicorn if you still have a pension, and even if it exists you’ll have to work longer to qualify than indentured servants in the colonies did.
• Good quality childcare is so expensive that it’s not even worth it to work in some professions (you know, the helping, socially useful ones).
• Make me laugh, let’s discuss health insurance. If you leave your job, once it runs out you’re back on the exchange. And if you take a new one with group insurance, unless the employer has the same insurer, you’re probably going to have to meet a second deductible. If you do find yourself in this situation, be sure to discuss this with the new insurer—some will give you credit for having met your deductible. Despite how it looked when the Affordable Care Act went into effect, most of us are afraid to leave our jobs because of the cost of insurance. Oh well, at least we can get it now.

Except for the childcare (mom stayed home until I went to school) NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THESE POINTS was true for my parents (born in 1913 & 1915). Sure, there’s lots that was wrong in previous eras (discrimination, worker safety), but full employment under Harry Truman (I just finished David McCullough’s biography) looked a lot different than what “full employment” means today. And not in a good way.

Read this before retiring!

 

Public service announcement: the age to collect your full Social Security benefit is NOT 65, and hasn’t been since 1983! Every year I see people who are planning to retire at 65 because “that’s when Social Security kicks in”. Please see a financial planner before you notify your job or the Social Security Administration that you’re retiring. AND, SSA is not in the business of telling you how you can get the most money, so know your options before you commit to anything.