The most important aspect of the RHA is that you are using pre-tax dollars upfront to fund it and they become ZERO tax dollars later on when you use the money. Plus, as currently written the rules are quite lax with regard to what you use the funds for. Knee replacement? Use a Dr in Miami and you can buy tickets and hotels for the surgery. With, tax-free money.

Unless one already has a ton of money set aside, it's a no brainer. I think that ALPA's suggestion is for pilots to shoot for a $200K RHA at retirement, per couple. And when you factor in maxing out your 401 contributions early in the calendar year and then adding post-tax dollars to your retirement lump. It's tough, but it should pay off downrange.