Health Marketing Trend
I’ve noticed an interesting little marketing trend in the last week or so. Purveyors of the kinds of things you can spend your Cafeteria/Flexible Spending Plan money on - eyeglasses, chiropractors, pain clinics - are advertising to folks who are approaching the end of the year and still have unspent money in their plan banks. It’s actually sort of clever, they’ve found this untapped little bundle of money to pitch for.
For those not familiar with these things, some employers sponsor Cafeteria plans in which employees can have money withheld from paychecks in order to pay for health-related expenses not covered by their health insurance, such as deductibles, eyeglasses, orthodonture, etc. The amounts withheld reduce the employee’s federal taxable income. However, any amount unspent at the end of the year reverts to the employer, and the employee loses out. It behooves participants to plan carefully, adjust their withholding when plans change, and try to come up a bit short at year-end.
If you have money left over, I guess you have to consider whether your employer is a more worthy recipient of the unspent funds than some quasi-quack importuning you with unwanted procedures or paraphernalia.
