I'm retired & have an HSA account. We are 63&64 y.o. For my one time HSA deposit, , do my husband and I need to take funds from our own IRAs into separate HSAs?

[vaughnplassio]

I'm paying 19K in COBRA premiums per year, would like to ameliorate the cost.

[dmertz]

Over age 59½ it makes no sense to do an HSA funding distribution (HFD) from an IRA because the only purpose of doing an HDF it to avoid an early-distribution penalty on the distribution from the IRA, and those over age 59½ are not subject to early-distribution penalties.  Simply taking a taxable distribution from the IRA and making a deductible contribution to the HSA avoids the testing period associated with an HFD.

Each individual qualified to make an HSA contribution can make a personal contribution to their own HSA using funds from any source and can take a deduction for that contribution.  If the funds com from a taxable distribution from an IRA, the deduction for the HSA contribution will offset the taxable income from the IRA, resulting in no net change it tax liability.

[Opus 17]

In the case that you do decide to do a QHFD, it must be direct.  Spouse A's IRA into spouse A's HSA, and spouse B's IRA into spouse B's HSA.

However, most of the time, you will save just as much money by doing a regular withdrawal from the IRA, and contributing that to the HSA, as you would doing a QHFD, because the tax deduction from the contribution offsets the tax from the withdrawal.  The regular withdrawal has less paperwork, and can be done as many times as you want, while the QHFD can only be done once.  And, once the money is in your checking account, you can contribute it anywhere you want. i.e. spouse A can withdraw from their IRA and contribute it to spouse B's HSA.  

I suppose there might be a situation where you would save more taxes doing the QHFD, but I can't think of an example.  

[dmertz]

"I suppose there might be a situation where you would save more taxes doing the QHFD, ..."

For all practical purposes, never for those over age 59½.  For those over age 59½, AGI ends up being the same whether the HSA contribution is done as an HFD from an IRA or is instead done as an ordinary IRA distribution followed by a deductible HSA contribution.

The only case where there would be a taxable difference is if the individual had basis in nondeductible traditional IRA contributions and for some reason wanted to preserve basis to be applied to an IRA distribution in a future year when the marginal tax rate is expected to be higher than now.  HFDs come only from the pre-tax portion of the individual's IRAs.  (Note that it would make absolutely no sense to make an HFD that exceeds the pre-tax amount in the individual's IRAs since the result of doing so would effectively subject the after-tax portion to taxation a second time.)