Program limited to employees with 50 or fewer employees and the self-employed. Little information on impact to date, but appear to have been unsuccessful in the marketplace, with far fewer people enrolling than allowed under the demonstration. Estimates of about 100,000 MSA enrollees now seem realistic, but are neither confirmed nor official.
Consumers prefer comprehensive coverage to high-deductibles.
The MSA expansion does not target funds to help working families or presently uninsured families. Expanded MSAs will divide the healthy from the sick, fragmenting the risk pool. MSAs do the opposite. MSAs drive up prices for traditional insurance and shift costs to the sick. If the percent of healthy choosing an MSA increased to 100 percent, premiums for traditional policies would increase by 335 percent.