In his first TV ad of the election cycle, Leonard Lance touted his “proven record of…making healthcare more affordable.” Let’s check the facts:
Over the summer, Lance voted to expand health savings accounts (HSAs) claiming, “We need to be expanding and enhancing the utility of these accounts and enable middle-class families to save more and use the accounts to meet their financial or health care needs to a better extent.”
However, these health savings account do nothing to make healthcare more affordable for middle class families, and in reality are little more than tax shelters for the rich. The new HSA’s would shift more healthcare costs onto the individual while allowing them to make significantly higher tax free contributions to their accounts.
Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation told nj.com, “These bills provide more opportunities for higher-income people to tax shelter but won’t really make much a difference in the healthcare system.”
However, analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities showed encouraging HSA’s would lead to a higher premiums, due to low-risk individuals leaving insurance pools in favor of HSA’s. Higher premiums would, in turn, lead more individuals to become uninsured.
“Making healthcare more affordable for the richest Americans does nothing to help the over 300,000 NJ-07 residents with pre-existing conditions who have seen their premiums skyrocket since Lance and Congressional Republicans began hacking away at the ACA,” said Malinowski Communications Dir. Benji Schwartz. “If we’re truly going to make healthcare more affordable for middle class families, we need a Congressman willing to fight for them.”