2013 Conference

Health

Financial Services

Each individual enrolled in a health savings account (HSA) plan faces a myriad of conflicting forces when deciding whether to defer the immediate benefit of take-home pay for the potential future benefit of making HSA contributions. Personal contributions to HSAs allow high-deductible health insurance plan enrollees to accumulate funds to cover out-of-pocket medical expenses. If an enrollee does not have HSA or other personal funds, he or she might not be able to receive needed medical attention. Contributions also allow eligible consumers to take full advantage of the various financial and tax planning benefits of HSAs. In this study, the first of its kind, hypothetical experimental surveys were conducted using a nationally representative sample of 505 respondents to determine factors that motivate personal contributions to HSAs. One treatment required respondents to view digital recordings of three current HSA enrollees speaking about their personal motivations to make contributions. The VIDEO treatment was associated with a statistically significant increase in the hypothetical level of HSA funding selected. In addition, higher education levels were associated with significantly higher levels of personal HSA contributions.