Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) have proven to be one of the most controversial provisions of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. Will HSAs blaze a trail to a more efficient health care system? Will they disrupt existing employer-sponsored insurance? Will they prove popular with health insurers, employers, and individual consumers? Or are they just another variation in the tax code that will be ignored by almost everyone? The future of HSAs, and their effect on health care markets, will depend greatly on how the law is interpreted by the U.S. Treasury Department's new guidance.

At this health policy discussion, Roy Ramthun and William Sweetnam Jr. of the Treasury Department will explain departmental efforts to develop HSAs within the provisions of the law. Three experts on HSAs and private health insurance markets will share their assessments of the Treasury's new guidance and its effect on the future of health insurance.