What is a health savings account? And why should I have one?

It’s an account to help you save and invest money to pay for health care expenses. Including:

• Medical
• Prescriptions
• Dental
• Hearing
• Vision

Important: To have an HSA, you must be in a high-deductible health plan. Once you are, you can open an HSA through your employer (if offered) or on your own.

Health care is one of the biggest expenses you’ll have in retirement. So, putting money aside is very important. A few other reasons are:

• You can invest & potentially grow your money:
  HSAs have investment options, too. This is a great way to potentially help pay for your health care costs in retirement – if you can afford to not use the money now. Invest and give your funds the opportunity to build until you’re ready to retire.
  
  
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• You get triple tax benefits:
  1. Lower income taxes – potentially: Money going into your HSA comes out of your paycheck. So, your taxable income goes down, which means you could pay less in income taxes.
  2. Tax-free investment growth: You don’t pay taxes on your earnings.
  3. Tax-free withdrawals: You don’t pay taxes on your money as long as you spend it on qualifying health care costs.*

*HSAs are not taxed at a federal income tax level when used appropriately for qualified medical expenses. Also, most states, but not all, recognize HSA funds as tax-free. Please consult a tax advisor regarding your state’s specific rules.

Investing involves risk. You could lose money. And there is no guarantee that investment objectives will be achieved.

Asset allocation, rebalancing and diversification do not assure a profit or protect against loss in a down market.