Health savings accounts: Are they helping consumers?

For several years companies have turned to health savings accounts to reduce costs. HSAs are high deductible plans that shift more of the responsibility for medical care onto the consumer. Recently, Indiana announced it would start offering HSAs to the poor. The question remains whether shifting to HSAs will contain costs better than other forms of health insurance.

Stephen Parente: Associate professor, Carlson School of Management at University of Minnesota. He specializes in health insurance and health economics.

Mila Kofman: Associate research professor, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. She focuses on private health insurance reforms and their impact on the under-insured and uninsured.