Congress does not need to and clearly cannot fix the abomination that is the American health insurance industry. But it can finally help us work around it.
Some HSA users have found they can not only reduce out-of-pocket costs, but also increase access to timely care. It takes the average patient more than 20 days to see their primary care physician, but direct primary care models offer patients"concierge" service. One Medical, the DPC practice recently purchased by Amazon, charges patients an annual fee of $199 for access to next-day appointments in major cities and 24-hour virtual care with no additional cost.
Congress can do two things to fix this. First, it could help patients act a little more like customers by eliminating the onerous regulations governing who can have an HSA, something Rep. Chip Roy has repeatedly introduced in his Healthcare Freedom Act. Second, it can make some allowance for pre-ACA catastrophic health insurance models.
The HSA-to-DPC model would also eliminate the moral hazard of the worst relic of the New Deal: employer-sponsored health insurance.