At the moment this is beingwritten, there are over 1.2 million confirmedCOVID-19 cases in the United States alone. Most insurance carriershave stepped up to the responsibility of waiving COVID-19 relatedcosts; however, stories of financially devastating expenses forCOVID-19 victims abound. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimatesthat for a person with employer-sponsored health insurance toaccess care for coronavirus—without any major medicalcomplications—the cost would be nearly $10,000.

This crisis has not only served as a shock to the system for theAmerican health care industry itself, it has become a call toaction for organizations and the health benefits brokers whorepresent them to seek out alternative solutions to the status quothat will protect their employees' health and the well-being oftheir organization.

Although it's undeniable that the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 hasthrown into sharp relief the failures of the health care industry,the evidence that healthcare is broken is nothing new. In 2018, theCommonwealth Fund estimated that nearly 29% of all Americans are what we wouldconsider underinsured—having health insurance coverage in nameonly that's too expensive to access. Health care consumers in theUnited States have been sold a false bill of goods in the form ofskin in the game.