“Our monitoring data clearly shows a significant upward trend in CDHC adoptions by employers, employees and individuals,” said JoAnn Laing, ISI’s President.

“We expect that in the coming quarters, more of these applications will appear and speed the transition into the CDHC environment of millions of Americans.”

“Our polling to date shows that CDHC offerings appeal to individuals across age groups and income levels as well as amongst small, medium and even large employers,” said Laing.

Laing also said “polling of the company’s four million regular small and medium size company executives surfaced a significant number of firms planning to introduce HSAs into their healthcare schemes in January, 2007.”

“Because of competitive pressure and the need to alleviate employee concerns,” she said, “many firms (13%) who had not offered healthcare insurance in the past were actively looking at doing so in 2007.”

Laing and others cite the possibility that the Senate will pass a bill permitting smaller companies to join associations to obtain healthcare, and say this is having a positive effect on ISI’s executive readers.

”We think this bill will be a powerful factor in driving HSA and HRA offerings in 2007 if it is passed as currently constituted,” she reported.

ISI is also conducting a nationwide survey involving CDHC insured, individuals covered by more traditional plans, and uninsured Americans, to gauge the impact of these evolving offerings.

“The results to date clearly point to the popularity of CDHC offerings but also of the strong bond many Americans have for more traditional plans,” Laing added.

“What we are seeing is that the cost of healthcare is severely impacting respondents’ healthcare decisions and that they want changes,” she added.

At the same time, as insurance providers, TPAs, account custodians and their supporting IT providers have implemented significant programs to help individuals and companies better utilize CDHC offerings.

Laing said that “we are beginning to see the impact of IT applications in the marketplace.”

Among many offerings that make the transition to HSAs easier is AETNA’s integration with Quicken to permit individuals to better monitor their HSA accounts.

Account custodians are offering packages that include investment opportunities for clients, while American Express' new program ties a line-of-credit to the account integrated with Empire Blue Cross; both of which demonstrate the trends towards tomorrow’s HSA program.  Amex is rapidly signing up new insurance partners and other credit programs, such as United Healthcare’s Texas-based pilot, are also appearing.  These offerings, like others to come, will allay the fear many individuals indicated in surveys that they do not have enough funds in their accounts to pay for charges associated with a major illness.

Several integrated packages are coming into the market. They tie an individual’s account to their insurance provider, which helps monitor expenditures and eases fears that users will not be able to pay healthcare providers the most economical fees.

Individuals who wish to have their insurance/account programs considered in the survey should go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=530371850698 and answer the questions there.