Health Savings Account Associations from a Social Work Perspective

ABSTRACT

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are often considered contrary to social work values and are often unpromoted and unsupported by social workers (Gorin, 2006). However, research demonstrates HSAs may help relieve the financial burden of health care costs and improve access to health care, thereby suggesting HSAs may align with social work values (Hageman & St. George, 2019).

Purpose

The research question addressed is whether health and debt variables are associated with HSA ownership status.

Method

This study explores HSA associations using a subset (n = 3,400) of 12,686 respondents from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY). Descriptive, bivariate, and weighted logistic regressions were conducted.

Results

About 75% of HSA owners reported they did not have a chronic disease or health-related debt. Weighted logistic regressions results indicate chronic disease status and debt are not significantly associated with owning an HSA.

Discussion

Recommendations for social work practice include assisting eligible clients use HSAs to lower their taxes, pay for out-of-pocket health care expenses, and save for retirement. Further, social workers are called to advocate to restructure current HSA policies to better fit the needs of the populations social worker serve.

KEYWORDS:

• Health Savings Accounts
• health status
• health behavior
• chronic disease
• health debt

Acknowledgments

We thank Terry Shaw, Ph.D., Paul Sacco, Ph.D., Bruce DeForge, Ph.D., and Jason Purnell, Ph.D. for their feedback on this project.

Disclosure statement

We have no known conflicts to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.