A Bronze marketplace plan may offer a lower premium, but that choice can also leave consumers overlooking a potential health savings account opportunity.
A provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed on July 4, 2025, changes that for every Bronze and Catastrophic plan enrollee.
Those plans now automatically qualify as high-deductible health plans for HSA purposes, opening a triple-tax-advantaged savings vehicle to 7.3 million people, the White House Council of Economic Advisers reported.
The Internal Revenue Service confirmed the change in guidance that took effect Jan. 1, 2026.
Fidelity Investments flags the expansion as one of the most significant HSA eligibility changes since these accounts were created more than two decades ago.
New eligibility will not reach enrollees on its own. Bronze and Catastrophic plans are marketed on premium price, and neither HealthCare.gov plan summaries nor most insurer enrollment pages flag HSA compatibility as a standard field.
Even enrollees who learn they qualify face a harder question: whether they can actually set money aside. The consumers most likely to land in these lower-premium plans may be the least positioned to fund a health savings account.
How the One Big Beautiful Bill Act rewrites HSA eligibility
Before 2026, most Bronze marketplace plans did not meet the Internal Revenue Service’s strict requirements for pairing with a health savings account, KFF reported.
Those plans often covered certain services before enrollees hit their deductible, or they exceeded the out-of-pocket maximums the IRS sets for eligible coverage.
The law eliminates that barrier by deeming those plans HSA-compatible regardless of their cost-sharing design, overriding the deductible and out-of-pocket tests that previously disqualified most Bronze coverage.
The Department of the Treasury and the IRS confirmed in Notice 2026-05 that off-exchange plans qualify under the same provision as marketplace coverage.
For the 2026 plan year, 35% of marketplace plans on HealthCare.gov are now HSA-eligible, up from just 4% the prior year, KFF confirmed. The law also permanently allows telehealth services before a plan’s deductible is met without jeopardizing HSA eligibility.
An HSA offers a triple tax advantage: contributions reduce taxable income, investment growth accumulates untaxed, and withdrawals used for qualified medical expenses carry no federal tax, Fidelity stated.
Unlike a flexible spending account, unused HSA balances roll over from year to year, and the account stays through job changes.
For 2026, the IRS allows HSA contributions of $4,400 for individuals, $8,750 for families, and an additional $1,000 catch-up for those 55 and older.
Fidelity’s retirement estimate puts new urgency behind HSA savings
The expansion arrives as retirement healthcare costs are climbing faster than in recent years, making those tax benefits harder to ignore for anyone planning ahead.
A 65-year-old retiring this year may need $185,500 in after-tax savings to cover healthcare costs throughout retirement, Fidelity’s annual estimate found.
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That figure jumped 7.5% from the prior year’s projection, and the annual rate of increase has accelerated over the past three consecutive years.
“Health care will likely be one of your top 5 expenses in retirement,” Steven Feinschreiber, senior vice president of financial solutions at Fidelity Investments, noted.
Yet Fidelity’s data show only 27% of HSA participants invest their assets, leaving roughly three-quarters without the tax-free compounding that could offset those rising costs.
Rising healthcare costs make HSA savings more important, yet most participants miss the tax-free growth that could help fund retirement medical expenses.Halfpoint Images / Getty Images
The affordability gap KFF identifies for Bronze plan enrollees
HSA eligibility is expanding at the same time that enhanced premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act have expired for the 2026 plan year.
Out-of-pocket premiums for subsidized marketplace enrollees are estimated to more than double what they paid the year before, KFF reported in its analysis.
Joseph Giordano, compliance manager at Health-E Commerce, the parent company of HSA Store, told the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) that the law opens a door that had stayed closed for years.
Considering there has been little legislative expansion since HSAs were first introduced, expanded access to potentially millions of Americans is a positive development.
Many enrollees who now qualify for HSAs landed in Bronze plans to get the cheapest available coverage, with no thought of tax-advantaged savings.
About 61% of marketplace enrollees already report difficulty affording out-of-pocket costs for medical care.
HSA eligibility alone may not outweigh Silver plan cost-sharing
Eligibility alone does not settle the coverage question. For enrollees weighing a Bronze plan with an HSA against a Silver plan with cost-sharing reductions, the key variable is disposable income after premiums.
KFF notes that at incomes between 100% and 250% of the federal poverty level, cost-sharing reductions embedded in Silver plans meaningfully lower deductibles and copays, an offset that can outweigh HSA tax benefits for households without consistent money to contribute.
The average Bronze plan deductible in 2026 is $7,476, while the average Catastrophic plan deductible equals the full out-of-pocket maximum of $10,600, KFF found.
An enrollee who cannot fund contributions beyond those deductibles carries the full exposure that Silver cost-sharing would otherwise offset.
The expansion gives Bronze and Catastrophic enrollees a new tax-advantaged option, but the decision comes down to what is left after premiums, enough to fund an HSA, or so little that a Silver plan’s built-in cost-sharing reductions deliver more immediate relief.
Related: Medicare vs. HSA: the costly mistake to avoid at 65