Dive Brief:
- Oscar Health and Independence Blue Cross were singled out by CNBC this week for offering deductible-only "simple" healthcare plans that erase the confusion of many ACA exchange offerings—and wound up charting impressive numbers as open enrollment closed.
- Oscar co-founder Mario Schlosser said that two-thirds of his company's ACA enrollees last month picked those simple plans over Oscar's other offerings. Independence Blue Cross also said that their one "simple" plan also ranked highly in their sign-ups.
- The simple plans come with deductibles as high as $6,000, but offer much lower premiums than other plans. While they require patients to pony up a lot of cash out of pocket, the plans do protect them from catastrophic illnesses, as providers pick up 100% of all costs across the board after the deductible has been reached.
Dive Insight:
It's not like there hasn't been survey after survey telling us that the ACA has a lot of people confused. Just a couple of months ago, the non-profit Transamerica Center for Health Studies released a survey that revealed as many as 46% of all Americans are still not sure how to participate in ACA exchanges.
So, it’s a bit mystifying that it took this long for insurers to figure out that if they just created something simpler, that people would gravitate towards it. But more than that, these simple plans speak to the cold reality of modern managed care: it's not about wellness—it's about bankruptcy. While many people still struggle with getting basic care, most are more afraid of a catastrophic illness that will ruin them.
These plans, with affordable premiums, help provide a basic line of defense to safeguard people against getting the double-whammy of a serious diagnosis and massive medical bills they'll never be able to pay.