The OBBB gives you more choice in your health care — here’s how

Who would you rather have calling the shots on your health care? You and your doctor? Your insurance company? Washington bureaucrats?

We all know the answer.

Now, thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill, that answer is becoming a reality.

How?

The bill expands access to health savings accounts — tax-free accounts that put you in charge of choosing the care that works best for you.

Watch Sofia Hamilton, health care policy analyst at AFP, explaining how the OBBB delivers for your health care:

What’s an HSA, and how does it help you?

An HSA is like a 401(k) for your health. The money you put in isn’t taxed and can be used for any qualified medical expense.

And unlike a flexible spending account, unspent HSA funds actually roll over from year to year.

• Annual check-up? Use your HSA.
• New glasses? Those are covered.
• Prescription drugs? That’s why the HSAs are there.
• You can even log into Amazon’s HSA store and buy your medicines easily.

No red tape. No need to seek permission from your insurance company.

But even though HSAs are perfect for expanding freedom and flexibility, more than 9 in 10 Americans don’t have one.

Some just haven’t heard of them, but millions more are effectively banned by outdated, unnecessary regulations.

What this bill does

The One Big Beautiful Bill gets rid of many of these unnecessary barriers and expands access to HSAs.

 Here’s how:

1. More plans now qualify.
   
   HSAs used to be limited to people with high-deductible plans. But many affordable plans, like Bronze and Catastrophic plans available on the Health Insurance Marketplace, didn’t count.
   
   The OBBB changed that, making these plans HSA-eligible and providing millions of participants access to tax-free savings.
   
   
2. Telehealth isn’t a disqualifier.
   
   Before, if your health plan covered telehealth services before you hit your deductible, you were automatically disqualified from having an HSA. The OBBB changed that, too.
   
   This isn’t a small change. During the pandemic, telehealth became more popular than ever, but the laws on the books didn’t keep up with the changes, preventing millions of Americans from getting the health care they wanted.
   
   That means more people will have more control and more freedom over their health.
   
   
3. It gives you more freedom to use your HSA your way.
   
   Direct primary care lets you pay your doctor a flat monthly fee for routine care instead of dealing with insurance for every visit. It’s simpler, more predictable, and often saves money.

But before the OBBB, if you had a DPC, you couldn’t contribute to an HSA or use your HSA money to pay for it.

The OBBB changes this. Now, you can put money into your HSA even if you have DPC and use it to pay for the monthly subscription.  

Take charge of your health care.

At AFP, we believe you should have much more freedom over your health care. You know what’s best for you better than the government or even your employer.

It’s your health care, after all.

That’s one of the reasons we supported the One Big Beautiful Bill; it’s a crucial step in the right direction to give Americans more freedom and choice in their health care.

But there’s still much to do.

Americans deserve a health care system that:

• Reduces costs
• Expands choice
• Increases access for all

That’s why we support a Personal Option as a way to get to the health care system Americans really need.

If you want to learn more about what this means for you, click here.