Health savings account enrollment increased to 6.1 million in January, up 35% from the total recorded a year earlier.
Researchers at America's Health Insurance Plans, Washington, published that figure today in a summary of results from a survey of AHIP member companies.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a separate HSA study noting that in 2006, the latest year for which detailed HSA figures are available, tax filers ages 19 to 64 reporting HSA activity had an average taxable income of about $139,000, compared with an average taxable income of $57,000 for other filers.
In 2005, 2006 and 2007, fewer than 60% of the taxpayers who were eligible to establish HSAs opened HSAs, the GAO researchers write.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, say the GAO HSA figures show that Congress should reexamine whether the HSA program is the right way to use government resources to address health care needs.
"Instead of being used by the low and middle-income Americans most likely to be without health insurance, HSAs are increasingly a popular tax shelter option for wealthy taxpayers," Waxman and Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's Health Subcommittee, say in a statement about the GAO study.
Waxman and Stark also are complaining about HSA advocates' opposition to efforts to require HSA enrollees to substantiate that HSA withdrawals were used to cover allowable medical expenses.
Waxman and Stark say information from at least one company indicates that HSA funds may have been spent on "escort services, at casinos and bowling facilities and in other non-health related areas."
The researchers who conducted the AHIP survey found that HSA products now account for 31% of new coverage issued in the small-group markets and 27% of new coverage issued in the individual market.
HSA plans already cover about 9% of the privately insured residents in the District of Columbia, Louisiana and Minnesota, AHIP researchers report.
The AHIP survey results show that HSA plans "are now an important part of the portfolio of coverage options," says AHIP President Karen Ignagni.
HSAs are "a dynamic, consumer-friendly and increasingly popular health insurance option," says Janet Trautwein, chief executive of the National Association of the National Association of Health Underwriters, Arlington, Va.
"HSAs give consumers a reason to be value-conscious shoppers in the health care marketplace," Trautwein says. "When patients are paying more attention to the cost of health care and demanding value for their dollars, total health care spending will decrease."
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