Vanderheyden had designed Harken's benefit plan, which was to offer unlimited primary care and behavioral visits at no charge when members receive those services at its staff-run clinics. Other services are subject to a relatively high deductible, depending on the ACA metal tier. But members pay no coinsurance after the deductible is met, other than copays for prescription drugs. And beyond primary care, members have access to UnitedHealth's national network of hospitals and specialists.

Harken was regarded as a test of what Vanderheyden called relationship-based primary care — and was hoped, as a value-based design, to encourage people to receive recommended primary and preventive care. Premiums charged for Harken's plan in Chicago were comparable to competing plans that did not offer no-charge primary care and that featured standard 20 percent coinsurance.

Vanderheyden was quoted in the article saying last November, "We think giving people unfettered access to relationship-based primary care will provide better counsel and advice and get members to use the broader healthcare system more judiciously. We have reasonable confidence in our model … I wouldn't call it an experiment."

But an independent broker in Atlanta, Susan Morris, said in the article that Harken "did a poor job of marketing the plan to agents and brokers." She also said that her own individual customers weren't crazy about having to give up their regular primary care doctors to use Harken's staff doctors instead. In addition, Harken had too few clinic locations to serve the large Atlanta market. Morris also pointed out that in Atlanta, Harken had to compete against Kaiser Permanente, a staff-model HMO offering all services, including specialty care, under one roof.

Oscar Insurance Corp., another innovative insurance startup created with the ACA in mind, announced last month that it was exiting the exchange markets in Dallas and New Jersey while remaining in New York City.