Health care reform discourages personal savings

While health care reform is capping or phasing out popular Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Accounts, the tide is running the other way when it comes to the attitude toward personal savings.

TD Ameritrade, which admittedly has a vested interest in helping customers build personal wealth, commissioned a phone survey of more than a thousand adults and found that 39 percent said becoming debt-free is part of their definition of success.

Another 29 percent said being able to save money for long-term goals is their idea of financial success.

Hindering this goal is credit card debt, a TD Ameritrade official said, which eats up income that otherwise could be channeled into savings.

Many of those surveyed would probably like to participate in a health savings account, which shelter income from taxes by placing it in a special account that can be tapped for medical expenses if need be. If not, the money can later be withdrawn.

The same goes for flexible spending accounts, which allow employees to put pre-tax money away for medical needs not covered by health insurance.

The new health care reform law discourages both of those programs, forcing us to rely more on the government than on personal responsibility and our own work, planning and saving. True, positive reform would encourage all of those.