This research assembled and evaluated existing medical savings account programs and how they have been carried out in communities where there is interest and commitment. The research team identified employers offering medical savings accounts to employees and their families and collected program information from those organizations. Information about medical savings accounts from various state legislative offices, periodicals, published studies, and other documents was collected. Additional information was obtained directly in interviews and by personal correspondence with MSA program managers and participants.
At a March 23, 2005, House Appropriations hearing on a bill to gut the voter-approved I-601 spending limit, Rep. Jim McIntire (D) asked a supporter of I-601’s two-third supermajority requirement for the legislature to raise taxes the following question:
"Can you name a time when we [legislators] have actually not just set it [supermajority requirement] aside by majority vote? I mean, this is in many respects a procedural motion that has no bearing. It’s a statutory constraint that cannot constrain any legislature that chooses as a majority to set it aside . . . have we ever used a supermajority [to raise taxes]?"