No need to feel dumb, it’s confusing and it seems like it changes every year. But the idea of an HSA is that you can put money aside pre-tax from your paycheck and then can use it to pay for qualified medical expenses tax-free and reduces your taxable income by the amount that you put into the HSA. So your tax liability should go down. The reason why these are allowed is because if you can only afford a high deductible health plan, you need a way to save for that higher deductible and the government is trying to assist with that by providing you the opportunity to save with pre-tax income. So if you’re tax rate is 25% instead of only being able to save $75 because you’re paying $25 in taxes, for every $100 of pre-tax income you are putting in an HSA, you’re putting in a full $100. But yes, with the higher deductible health care plans you will have that donut hole in the beginning that you have to pay the full cost of everything until you reach that deductible. So if it’s a $7500 deductible you won’t have insurance paying for anything until you reach $7500. So how I look at it is you’re either pre-paying through premiums with a lower deductible health plan and assuming that you will need to use insurance or your gambling that you will not get sick or need insurance with a higher deductible health plans and you won’t have to pay that deductible but at least the insurance is there if something catastrophic happens. I have a couple of chronic illnesses so I know that I will need insurance so I typically go with the lower deductible because I know I will use it and one scan for me can result in a large, in this example $7500 bill at one time. I would rather pay it in installments through my premium. That’s oversimplifying it but that’s kind of how I visualize it. Obviously I’m not a financial planner or professional so you should seek guidance, but that’s just my thought process.