“One major drawback is that the money must be spent within the coverage period as defined by the benefits cafeteria plan coverage definition. This coverage period is usually defined as the period that you are covered under the cafeteria plan during the “plan year”. The “plan year” is commonly defined as the calendar year.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_spending_account

These aren’t for high deductible plans, as I had thought. Those are health savings accounts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_savings_account

Strangely, those contribution limits are around $6,000 per year.

WHY would anyone accumulate $11,000 in one of these plans? You need $11,000 of uncovered expenses in one year, or the benefit forfeits to the company. It has to be a cafeteria plan set up by the company.

Having looked at this, I have no idea how many taxpayers are affected: how many employees are under cafeteria plans, for example. I don’t know how the employee would benefit from $11,000 being put in the account, since they can’t spend it in the plan year.

Elise, do YOU understand this? Do you CARE to understand this? Do you BEGIN to COMPREHEND why anyone with a moderately functioning frontal cortex gets incredibly frustrated with the Republican party in its present from, when people write headlines like yours and then are unable to comprehend how the headline fits the article in any real world sense?

Ok, I dug a little deeper. Here are the facts:

About 12% of the labor force have access to FSAs. “Most” employers limit the contribution to $3000. Source:

http://www.chpa-info.org/pressroom/FSAs_FactsFigures.aspx

That means, less than 6% have an option to put more than $3000 in. There isn’t any logical reason to have a number like $11,000 in these accounts. The Congress probably just eliminated a fantasy number.

Do you care, Elise, if anything you say makes sense? Are you a complete nihilist? Are you beyond embarrassment?

I thought these accounts were for covering deductibles, so that people could buy catastrophic plans more efficiently.

Why would the average middle class family accumulate $10,000 in the account? Presumably they would have to pay their normal deductible and co pays every year anyway, so they would have an outlay directly to providers – if they had a $1500 deductible, then they would pay $1500 every year. For some reason, then, they would put another $10,000 in an account to get the tax break…why?

The only way it makes any sense at all is (1) that someone has a $10,000 deductible, and is saving for that rainy day or (2) someone is using this because they could use another deduction. I would think that many people could benefit from a modest savings account to park their deductible every year – for most people that’s going to be $1000 or $1500, not $10,000.

Please, Elise, tell me how this hurts the average middle class person? I’m mystified.

“This post would be more compelling with data indicating how many people are impacted broken down by income range. It seems just conjecture without that.”

…….Apropos my comment above I’m going to bet it limited to people with high incomes, but this sort of sleight of hand is common amongst opponents or reform…….those earning $250 a year become rank and filers!

……..very few middle class people with incomes of around $50k have HFSA’s…….the only people I’ve ever come across with these sort of plans are people with family incomes of over $200k plus.

Redstate is missing it’s village idiot.

Har. And double Har.

In addition to the suggestion that government officials would consider hastening the death of the infirm or handicapped, she began her remarks with a puzzling commentary on the design of newly minted dollar coins.

Noting that there had been a lot of “change” of late, Palin recalled a recent conversation with a friend about how the phrase “In God We Trust” had been moved to the edge of the new coins.

“Who calls a shot like that?” she demanded. “Who makes a decision like that?”

She added: “It’s a disturbing trend.

Polite people might call it odd or a little paranoid. The rest of us call it nuts.