This is something deeply interesting to me and I'd love to see more comments around it. Here are some questions I have, as someone who has been in the health insurance brokerage space for 3 years early on in my career.
In the case of the Jordans, they had a $2K deductible that the article fingers as the main source of their obligation. However, it further says that they ended the year owing ~$8K (on top of their monthly payments of $501). That just seems like a bad plan: high deductible, low lifetime max or bad coinsurance split. So on top of a high deductible, it offers bad coverage in the case of catastrophe. To me, that brings up two things: 1) lack of savings (I think there's a statistic that like 50% of americans couldn't get $500 together in case of an emergency) and 2) high deductible plans that can bury families. This strikes me as similar to the problem of treating addiction; it takes so many people to treat addiction: psychiatrists, therapists, internal medicine, financial support, job searching, housing support. Healthcare, specifically how an employee navigates it, seems to be a similar problem, requiring budgeting, finding time to find a doctor, etc etc. Are there any companies or people working on this kind of stuff right now?
It also appears that short-termism is another factor in play here. Because of changes to the tax code, companies began offering cheaper plans, thinking that it would cause employees to be more frugal but instead it just caused them to cut back on all preventative care. Does anybody know of example companies that didn't do that? That recognized the risk up front and resisted the short term gains on quarterly guidance?
Lastly, I think it's admirable what the new Gawande-led venture stands for, but I just had a vision of a future where only giant mega-corps will have the leverage—both financially and politically—to properly insure their select few Chosen employees. Is that at all likely? Or have I been watching too much 3%?