health savings account

[Ryan Fox]

The below article talks about the advantages of a health savings account.  One of the things they say is you can make contributions to the HSA and invest those amounts, but pay your medical bills with other funds.  Then, when you later have other expenses, such as college tuition, travel, ect., you can withdraw funds from the HSA as reimbursement for your past medical bills.  

Is this true?  I read IRS Pub. 969 and couldn't find it addressed that specifically.  Thanks in advance!

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/1...

[Alex Gunnerson]

I am not an expert but this is how I understand it.

@Ryan Fox yes you could let the $ grow for as long as you'd like. Many people will pay off their medical expenses by other means, not touching their HSA because they would rather let that HSA money to continue to grow tax free instead of using it to pay expenses.  

Let's say you have had 10k in medical expenses and over time you have paid these expenses and have not used your HSA. 15 years later, assuming you had all of your receipts from the expenses, you could pull that $10k out without having to pay taxes on it.

The book "The Simple Path to Wealth" does a great job of explaining this in depth, although it may be more than what you are looking for since it covers your overall wealth and other financing strategies, not just HSAs.