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Two health insurers without much presence in the group health market hope to use individual coverage health reimbursement arrangement programs to get employers' attention.
Executives from Oscar Health and Centene both talked briefly about their ICHRA efforts Tuesday, during separate conference calls with securities analysts.
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Mark Bertolini, Oscar's chief executive officer and a former CEO of Aetna, startled some in December when he said on CNBC that ICHRA programs should replace traditional employer-sponsored group health plans.
Bertolini said during his company's analyst call that Oscar succeeded at increasing the number of workers using ICHRA programs in Atlanta; Columbus, Ohio; the Kansas City area; Miami; and New Jersey.
Oscar attracted ICHRA sponsors by offering an ICHRA platform that offered employers a convenient way for workers to shop for coverage and access to personal care guides, Bertolini said.
"We will build on this momentum in 2025 and introduce more solutions for employers and employees," Bertolini said. "Oscar is positioned to take share from traditional group plans and engaged employers that do not offer insurance today."
Sarah London, the CEO of Centene, said during her company's call that the insurer is happy about a new, state-based Affordable Care Act exchange program in Georgia that will help Centene work with employer-sponsored ICHRA programs in Georgia.
"We continue to view ICHRA as the future of health insurance for working Americans," London said.
London also talked about ICHRAs when she answered an analyst's question about the mergers and acquisitions Centene might make.
"I would say ICHRA is a place that we are very interested in and thinking about what market may need, relative to overall infrastructure, and how we could support that through various partnerships and investments," London said.
The backdrop: The ICHRA is a relatively new strategy an employer can use to give workers cash that the employers can use to buy their own individual major medical coverage.
Softheon and its W3LL ICHRA subsidiary recently published survey data suggesting that as many as 6 million people may now be using ICHRA programs or similar arrangements to pay for coverage.
Oscar said in August that it wanted to get close to brokers who could help employers set up ICHRA programs.
Related: Oscar Health going all in on ICHRAs
Centene announced in January that it was hiring Alan Silver to be president, ICHRA, at its Ambetter Health business.The earnings: Oscar and Centene held the analyst calls to go over earnings for the fourth quarter.
Oscar, a startup with strong investor support, reported a $153 million net loss for the latest quarter on $2.4 billion in revenue, compared with a net loss of $150 million on $1.4 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2023.
It ended the year providing or administering health coverage for 1.7 million people, from 1 million people a year earlier.
Centene is reporting $280 million in net income for the latest quarter on $41 billion in revenue, up from $39 million in net income on $39 billion in revenue for the year-earlier quarter.
It ended the year providing or administering health coverage for 22 million people, down from 23 million people a year earlier.
Most Centene enrollees are in Medicaid plans. The company's commercial plan enrollment increased to 4.8 million, from 4.3 million.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
