…and How to Fix It Each year, Americans rank health insurance companies near the bottom in public trust. Just above cable companies. Just below used car dealers. In fact, a 2023 Axios-Harris Poll placed health insurance dead last among major industries for reputation. Why? Because most health plans feel extractive, opaque, and adversarial. We pay more, get less, and rarely … Continued
Why Healthcare’s “Transparent” Plans Still Leave You in the Dark “You can’t shop for what you don’t see.”— Uwe Reinhardt, Princeton health economist It’s one of the most powerful — and painfully accurate — truths in American healthcare. For decades, we’ve talked about giving consumers more responsibility and “skin in the game.” But how can … Continued
What Travel Sites Teach Us About the Future of Care For decades, Americans have been told to “shop for healthcare”—but given none of the tools or transparency needed to do so. While nearly 50% of healthcare spending is theoretically shoppable, few consumers can act like real shoppers in today’s system. But perhaps the challenge isn’t about … Continued
Narrow network plans were designed to lower healthcare costs by limiting provider access to “preferred” groups. But in practice, they often deliver: Oxbridge Health: A Better Path to Value Oxbridge Episode Benefit Plans and the Episode Advantage Program offer a smarter, member-centered alternative.We don’t just restrict networks—we redesign how care is delivered and paid for, aligning incentives across the … Continued
How Oxbridge Makes Smarter Choices Possible For years, behavioral economists like Richard Thaler and Daniel Kahneman have shown us a fundamental truth: humans don’t always make rational decisions, especially when things are complex, uncertain, or opaque. Healthcare, unfortunately, is all three. Most health plans offer fragmented pricing and disjointed care. Consumers are asked to make … Continued
How Oxbridge Health Unleashes the Power of the Consumer in a System Designed to Confuse Them In video games, casinos, and even social media apps, we’ve all seen the same pattern: opaque pricing, confusing systems, and a house that always wins. These environments are built to nudge the user into spending more without realizing it—and to limit … Continued
What Medicare Part D Can Teach Us About Smarter Health Benefit Design One of the most underappreciated behavioral design levers in healthcare may be something many beneficiaries have come to dread: the Medicare Part D “donut hole.” Often viewed purely as a financial burden, the donut hole—where consumers temporarily bear more of the cost—has also proven to … Continued
Why Consumer Incentives Could Finally Fix Healthcare—If We Let Them “Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.”— Charlie Munger Incentives shape human behavior more than any rule, policy, or guideline ever will. From the airlines that nudge us to spend points before expiration to the tax … Continued
How AI, Predictive Modeling, and Quilt Are Transforming Healthcare Decision-Making For decades, the healthcare industry has echoed the same aspiration: Right care. Right place. Right time. Right cost. It’s a powerful vision—but one that has often felt more like a slogan than a system. Despite all the clinical advances and payment reforms, most healthcare decisions … Continued
Why Healthcare Needs to Price the Whole Trip Over the last decade, health plans have made strides toward transparency. Innovations like Surest’s upfront pricing and Curative’s simplified cost-sharing represent important efforts to make health benefits more understandable and less burdensome. Yet these models—while promising—fall short in a critical way: they only show the price of individual … Continued