A lesson in how your insurance plan can influence your health.
Congressman Tom Price, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to head up the Department of Health and Human Services, faced his first Senate confirmation hearing today.
While he was light on the specifics of what the incoming Trump administration wants to replace Obamacare with, he did say, "I think health savings accounts and high-deductible catastrophic coverage are things that make a whole lot of sense for many individuals, and we ought not force anybody to do anything. It ought to be a voluntary choice, but they ought to have the choice to be able to select them."
Those high-deductible or “catastrophic” plans work like this: you pay most of your own medical bills up to a specific amount — usually thousands of dollars — before your insurance kicks in. Price, and congressional Republicans say they're a big part of what should replace Obamacare. And it's not just the GOP who likes them; Democrats and employers have also embraced these plans. But here's a complication: researchers do not know if high-deductible plans actually lead to good health care.
