A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) would expand health savings accounts (HSA), health reimbursement arrangements and flexible spending accounts (FSA) to cover dietary supplements. The bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee on Aug. 6.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that we need to be giving people more avenues and opportunities to save money in preventative healthcare costs. This is a common-sense solution that will save patients and taxpayers money,” said Daniel Fabricant, PhD, president and CEO of the Natural Products Association. 
 
“Too much of our focus in this country is on disease treatment rather than prevention,” he added. “This simple change in our regulations promotes the proactive, preventive approach that we need to adopt if we wish to improve our nation’s health and manage healthcare costs. Thank you to Senator Cramer and his staff for their support and wanting to expand choices for hundreds of millions of Americans who use supplements to stay healthy in this challenging time.”
 
“A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to include certain over-the-counter dietary supplement products as qualified medical expenses” (S.4463) defines the term “dietary supplement product” as a nutritional product that is labeled with a statement describing how the product is intended to affect the structure or function of the human body or a statement characterizing the mechanism by which the product acts to maintain such structure or function.