Health Savings Accounts (HSA) are an option for health insurance and are designed to help individuals save for qualified medical and retirement health expenses (as defined by the IRS) as well as for businesses to be able to provide affordable health insurance plans with income tax benefits. Any adult who is covered by qualified high-deductible health plan (HDHP), and is not covered by any other plan, including Medicare, may establish as HSA.
HSAs are portable, the account can travel with an employee from job to job, and funds can accumulate without the annual use-it-or-lose-it requirement of a flexible spending account. Funds distributed from the HSA are not taxed if they are used to pay qualified medical expenses. To encourage savings for health expenses after retirement, individuals age 55 and older are allowed to make additional catch-up contributions to their HSAs.