Article by Amy B. Monahan
Examining consumer health care spending through an “ownership society” paradigm, this Article sets forth the potential benefits and shortcomings posed by the enactment of section 223 to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 by the Medicare, Prescription Drug, Improvements, and Modernization Act of 2003. Proponents of ownership society health care, the Article observes, might better employ U.S. tax policy as a unique regulatory scheme, both to encourage prudent consumer health care spending and to facilitate health care reform aimed at desirable social goals, such as ensuring benefits to those most in need. As background, the Article studies the recent extension of tax-favored treatment to health savings accounts (HSAs), which together with high-deductible health insurance, form a new type of health insurance known as a “consumer-driven health plan” (CDHP). CDHPs have the potential to curb steep health care expenditures in the United States by incentivizing individuals to spend medical care dollars wisely, as well as providing several other benefits. However, the Article concludes that ownership society health care as currently structured will fail to achieve meaningful health care reform.
About the Author
Amy B. Monahan. Associate Professor of Law, University of Missouri-Columbia. J.D., Duke University School of Law; B.A., The Johns Hopkins University.
Citation
80 Tul. L. Rev. 777 (2006)