The Office of Personnel Management has announced that
121,342 federal employees opened flexible spending accounts
for 2004 in order to ease out-of-pocket medical bills or
the costs of dependent care.
OPM attributed the four-fold increase over last year’s
enrollment to an aggressive ad campaign as well as support
from the National Treasury Employees Union.
Employees may contribute pre-tax income up to $4,000 per
year for FSAs to cover qualified medical expenses not
covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program
— including dental care, eye-wear, prescription drug
co-payments and over-the-counter medicines – and employees
may also fund another FSA account up to $5,000 per year to
care for children or qualified parents.