One goal of Obamacare was to "eliminate waste, fraud and abuse" and in doing so would bring down the cost of health care. If you have an HSA or FSA, starting in January of 2011 you could no longer use those funds to purchase OTC medication unless you had a doctors prescription.
By imposing this requirement the brainiac's in DC estimated they would "save $5 billion over 10 years by cutting down on unnecessary drug purchases".
Of course they neglected to factor in the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Instead of REDUCING expenditures on health care, just the opposite occurred.
Indeed, many doctors complain that they're seeing patients for the sole purpose of writing out prescriptions for over-the-counter medicines.
Imagine that . . .
"Flexible Spending and other medical savings accounts allow consumers to have more control of their medical decisions and help them save money," Nelson said. "The use of these consumer-driven accounts should be encouraged, not discouraged."
The policy was originally introduced by a Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), as a compromise during bipartisan negotiations to avoid requiring people with FSAs and HSAs pay for the whole cost of over-the-counter medications.
I assume Sen. Snowe does not have an FSA or has no idea how to use it.
Perhaps they had to pass the bill in order to know what was in it . . .
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