The year was 2003 and I was working with a Fortune 500 company in Austin, TX that would be the first large employer (10,000+ covered employees) to launch a consumer driven health plan (CDHP). The savings the company realized from the federally mandated high deductibles would be redistributed in the form of health savings account (HSA) dollars so employees and their dependents could be better stewards of their own money. Employees loved that the money in the HSA was theirs to keep and they would not lose it at the end of the year (FSA) or when they left the company (HRA).

As we flash forward to the 2019 healthcare marketplace, average deductibles for employer health plans have