mikestanley

I hope you don’t mind me asking one quick follow-up question @Brian Gilmore. Even though my wife’s general purpose FSA has rendered me HSA inelligible, will it be OK if we use funds from her FSA to pay for my prescriptions, doctor visits, or other medical expenses? I’d like to assume so, and we’ve always used each others FSA cards throughout the year for each other depending on who ran out first.

Thanks so much @Brian Gilmore. I really appreciate your thorough response and help. I'll reach out to the HSA custodian after the holidays and get this sorted out. Next year, either I'll switch back to the PPO + FSA, or my wife and son will switch to the HDHP + HSA. It all comes down to math and timing for the rather large deductible and out of pocket maximum.

@Brian Gilmore I am so glad I came across this topic and your replies before setting up my HSA contributions for next year. Thank you. My wife and I work for a public university and for reasons I've never fully understood, we've either needed to or been encouraged to maintain separate health insurance - something to do with our life insurance benefit through the state, I think. So for 2024 I chose the high deductible plan with HSA and my wife chose the premium PPO option for her and our son. And as we've always done, she chose to have a general purpose FSA for 2024. None of these decisions can be changed now as far as I know since open enrollment is over. Based on this thread and reading I've done elsewhere, including other universities that make it clear one spouse cannot have an HSA while another has a general purpose FSA, I understand I'm HSA ineligible for 2024 and will not be making any contributions to the HSA. But when I called our benefits department they insisted I was eligible, and even reached out to "confirm" that with the HSA company, but also said if I had further questions I should consult a tax advisor. I can accept I'm out of luck for 2024 on setting money aside tax-free for health expenses. Since I'm on a number of meds and see a number of specialists and will likely have at least one surgery, the HD plan will work out better for me than the PPO since my premiums and out of pocket maximum will be lower. And I guess I can just put some extra money in my 401k to try to achieve the same tax benefit. But my concern is - must I convince my employer to withdraw their contribution to my HSA for 2024? It's only $500, and I don't plan to use any of it in 2024, but I'm worried that may still create some sort of tax liability or penalty for me. I'm just not sure how to start that conversation with the department who would, I assume, request the refund/return of the $500 employer contribution from my account, given that they basically insisted I was wrong about the whole matter to begin with.