These sort of things sound like "no harm, no foul", but the bottom line is that they help almost no one who needs help, and act primarily as a tax shelter for the affluent, not as a way to give people health insurance who don't already have it. In the meantime, since the government is running a deficit, that billion dollars will come out of your pocket - with interest.

Republican lawmakers, with little public debate, quietly added a billion-dollar health-care benefit to legislation that was rushed through Congress just before it adjourned Saturday morning...

....The provision, which materialized without fanfare late last week inside a massive tax-cut measure, expands the amount of money that can be contributed tax-free to health savings accounts (HSAs). The accounts can be used to pay medical bills and for other health-related coverage.

The legislation allows anyone to shelter thousands of dollars annually in HSAs, regardless of how much that person pays for a health-insurance deductible. Current law limits HSA contributions to the amount of a person's deductible. The expansion would cost the government $1 billion in lost tax revenue over the next decade.