I'm John Batchel.

Welcome back, Gene Marks from the road.

He comes east, however, where we both live and have grown up, to the business of Washington

and an HRA.

What is that, Gene, and why is it a good idea?

I think you and I were talking about this before we went on the air, John, that HRAs are a potential savior for small businesses when it comes to health insurance.

And I think that if you're struggling with the increase in health insurance costs and fiduciary responsibility, you really need to talk to your

benefits advisor about HRAs. They mean health reimbursement arrangements. Sometimes people call them

health reimbursement accounts. There are ones for individuals and there are ones for companies.

And I'll put it in the most simplistic terms, John, okay?

With an HRA, instead of paying for health insurance for your employees, you put money into their HRA account.

They don't get taxed and you get a tax deduction.

And then they can take that money and buy their own health insurance with it.

Where do they get their health insurance?

Well, the health care exchanges.

And, you know, there are many options on the health care exchanges for people to get more affordable health care than maybe they're even getting through their employer.

Or you can provide a list of approved brokers, or maybe you belong to an association, or

have an end for people to get more affordable health care.

But the bottom line is, is the employer, you're not doing it anymore.

You're out of it.

You're just reimbursing your employees for their cost when they're buying their own

health care and why is that a really good thing for employers well there's two reasons that come to

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