I’m not sure why, but several weeks ago my old employersaw fit to send me their “2008 Account-Based Healthcare Plan Options.” As I am not eligible to participate in the plan, I received it with mixed emotions. I will get to said emotions in a moment.

But first you might be asking why the heck (or some other zesty expletive) is he talking about some plan that not only has nothing to do with him, but has nothing to do with me? Well, it does and I’ll just leave it there for now

Now back to the emotional touchy feely gooey stuff that I mentioned in the opening. I’ll start with the happy. And that is that the company is moving toward CDH (Consumer Directed Health), which I believe directionally is a smart choice given the spiraling cost of health care. Although I think I read somewhere that health care costs were expected to rise only 6.1% this year which, while absurd, is either flat or lower than in previous years. Hey, small blessings. They offered both an HRA (Health Reimbursement Account) option and an HSA option. The other happy place is that I am glad to see my old employer still sees insurance as a priority as a recruitment and retention tool.

As for the emotionally draining stuff, it was a little tough to see a company known traditionally for its maternal qualities, continuing to degenerate toward a vanilla standard in employee benefits. I don’t think they are totally there yet, but they continue to move away from, rather than toward being bes-in-class when it comes to employee benefits. Because I’m interested in the CDH space and particularly HSAs, I did read the booklet from cover to cover. Twice. Remember, I’m slow.

Slowness aside, for the average Joe or Jane (and I’m the average Joe) it was a tough read. Most of the 45,000+ employees of my former company have probably never even heard of an HRA or HSA so there was a lot of education to be conveyed. I’m of the (admittedly very biased) opinion that this website does a terrific job of explaining the HSA piece. And if you agree, and your employer is implementing HSAs or you are looking for one as an individual, please check out this site thoroughly. Or if you are an employer of any size, big or small, thinking about implementing an HSA but your insurance broker is confounding you, you can learn the basics quickly on this site. Apologies for the shameless plug.

There were several other things that bugged me about the plan, but one in particular was quite disappointing. That was the company’s seemingly shrewd calculated favoring of HRAs over HSAs. This was done, in my opinion in a number of ways including the company electing to fund HRAs but not HSAs; Not showing the effective income gain (in effect a pay increase) from the above the line tax savings of funding an HSA; and not ever creating examples of costs that stacked the HRA options with the HSA options.

Here are the key point for you folks who may be confused by your own company’s offerings.

• Recognize that your well intentioned employer may be presenting options to you that while seemingly favor you, may actually be more beneficial to them over the long run.
• Do the math!!!! And if math is not your thing, get someone else to for you (or check out the calculators (individuals or employers) on this site, they can do some of the math for you and they are free!!)
• Consider your own situation and try to find examples that are more specific to you and your family
• Always be wary of “the man.”