This reminds me of Dick Lamm saying that old people have a duty to die. I guess it’s good that we have so many old politicians trying to do meaningful work instead of riding motorcycles.
Without looking, I’m guessing that doctors POV is much more nuanced and that is super misleading.
https://twitter.com/bschapiroMD/status/1337407993940467714
seems dubious but I guess italy was racking them up for awhile at first
Gonna need to hear our doctorbros weigh in on that.
sure but contrast it with new zealand declaring themselves covid free and…
sure but a bunch of people don’t consume media anymore unless it’s crazy shit off facebook which will never cover that other than LOL VACCINES BAD.
tl;dr WAAF
FSAs are horrible, and companies often steer you towards electing them knowing they’ll get to keep the money.
Damn my buddy from high school is a doctor…
His dad is posting about Covid being a hoax refusing to wear a mask. His son is pleading with him because the mom is super high risk.
JFC
He sounds pretty psycho to me.
Like many things FSAs are +EV if used correctly, and -EV if used incorrectly.
The way mine have always worked (multiple employers) is that if you say you want $1000 in the FSA in 2021, that $1000 is in the FSA on Jan 1. However, they don’t deduct the entire $1000 in the first pay period. If you get paid monthly, then they will just take out $83.33 every month, so the $1000 will get there by the end of the year. If you end your employment before you are paid up, they will take what you owe out of the last check.
As you’ve noted the key is that you don’t want to put too much in there. When I have had one, I always make sure that I put in less than I think I will need. Some will allow you to carry over a small amount until the next year (e.g. $500), so you can think about putting in a little more.
But if you do it right, you won’t lose anything and it’s all pre-tax. And if they give you a match that’s just free money. The match really complicates the calculation, because on the one had you want to maximize the match, but on the other hand you don’t want to put in money that you are going to lose. Nevertheless, even if you don’t maximize your EV, you should still be able to come up with some +EV strategy.
HSAs are definitely better, but those have to be paired with a high deductible plan, so they’re not exactly interchangable.
Local legend George Hurley at 82 years old. (85 now and still climbing hard.)
I know that’s the case, but why? Why the fuck can’t you just contribute to an HSA with any plan? I’d love to hear the argument.
Because they want to force people into HDHP so that we all don’t run to the doctor every time we have a runny nose. Because of course we all love going to doctors for no reason.
Well the idea is that if you have a high deductable plan, you would only do that if you don’t think you need the insurance very much, but when you do, you are going to have a very high out of pocket expense. The HSA is designed so that you can save up money over many years so that when that day comes, you can use the money you’ve saved up to pay that high deductable.
I’m not saying that is good reasoning. It’s just what I have heard is the reason behind the law.
As a practical matter, most everyone just (correctly) uses the HSA as an extra retirement account.
But to get the HSA you have to sign up for what many would consider to be worse insurance.
He’s just a Next Generation LARPer
Meh the high deductibles are a lot cheaper and when you paying full freight on the private market the difference is big. I think mine is 600-700 a month cheaper. Basically the HSA plan premium savings is the amount of the HSA deposit annually.
But the math is not trivial. The way mine worked was high and low usage were cheaper taking the low cost high deductible plan. But the high cost low deductible plan could be better at medium usage (if we both got near but not over the high deductible limit then that plan was cheaper).
But the downside is in the 2k range. The upside is the more like 8k.
But it takes a moderately sophisticated spreadsheet calc to figure this out.
No way in hell most people can do that.
FSA is great if you have a kid in braces and.know you will spend the max. But otherwise it’s tricky. Again the more you can predict your spending the better or perhaps expand your spending on glasses/contacts if you underspend. But it is a lot of work and budgeting.