Congress moves to strip tax breaks from abortion care in health savings accounts
H.R. 720 — Protecting Life in Health Savings Accounts Act · Filed by Josh Brecheen (R-OK) · 10 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 24, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code to prohibit using pre-tax health savings accounts (HSAs), Archer Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs), health flexible spending arrangements, and retiree health accounts to pay for abortions, with narrow exceptions for abortions resulting from rape or incest or necessary to prevent the pregnant woman's death. The effect is to eliminate a tax subsidy for abortion expenses in these accounts, making such expenses taxable to the account holder.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is to remove tax-advantaged status from abortion expenses in health savings accounts. It is a targeted restriction on a specific medical expense category, not a general health-care reform or savings-account modernization.
What the text implies
- The carve-out for rape, incest, and life-endangering pregnancy creates a certification requirement ('as certified by a physician') that may create administrative burden and potential delays in accessing funds for qualifying abortions.
- The bill applies retroactively to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025, meaning individuals who have already made HSA contributions for 2025 may face unexpected tax consequences if they use those funds for abortion care.
- Elimination of tax-advantaged abortion funding may increase demand for employer-sponsored abortion benefits or out-of-pocket spending, shifting costs to individuals and potentially widening access disparities by income.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill eliminates a tax subsidy (pre-tax treatment) for abortion expenses in health savings accounts for most pregnancies, increasing the out-of-pocket cost to individuals seeking abortion care. While the bill does not ban abortion itself, it makes abortion more expensive relative to other medical care by removing the tax advantage, which disproportionately affects lower-income individuals who rely on HSAs and FSAs.
Named in the bill
Internal Revenue Code, Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), Archer Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs), Health Flexible Spending Arrangements (FSAs), Retiree Health Accounts, U.S. Department of the Treasury
Where it stands
10 cosponsors: 10 Republicans.
- Jan 24, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 24, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Ways and Means · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. Those filings disclosed $700,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 56 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Josh Brecheen, the sponsor, reported $111,570 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Associated Builders and Contractors Inc — $700,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jan 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,417 characters) on Sep 18, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jan 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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