Washington MSA Project
Issaquah, Washington 98027-8616
April 15, 2001

Allison Giles
Chief of Staff
Committee on Ways and Means
U.S. House of Representatives
1102 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Ms. Giles:

Please accept this letter as testimony in response to your Committee solicitation for written statements bearing upon recent hearings on making health care affordable. This statement relates directly to Representative Nancy Johnson’s Health Subcommittee Hearing dated 4 April, 2001.

The Washington Medical Savings Account Project is a nonprofit educational and research organization based in the Seattle area. We continue to research the roles and effectiveness of "Archer MSAs" nationally and in Washington state. We have concluded that federal tax favored MSA programs given appropriate latitude, expansion, and scope under new legislation will bear constructively upon increasing measurably the availability of affordable health insurance.

Addressing the proposed MSA expansion legislation Representatives Thomas and Lipinski introduced this month and which we support, we recommend two further vital improvements:

• Eliminate the ceiling for the Archer MSA high deductible health insurance but set the upper limit on the allowed total tax favored annual contribution to the MSA.
• Allow flexible MSAs linked to either front end deductibles or to deductibles for health care services other than routine primary and preventive care.

Both of these modest additions to the Thomas/Lipinski "Medical Savings Account Availability Act fit well the intention of Congressional action to enchance and improve the affordability of healthcare.

Thank you for an opportunity to provide this testimony;

Stephen Barchet, MD, FACOG, CPE, FACPE
Chair/CEO

Cc: The Honorable Jennifer Dunn