ICHRAs RISING
Early adopters and fans of these consumer-directed accounts tout the power of choice, a competitive individual market, offloading risk and achieving bipartisan healthcare reform.
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Written By Bruce Shutan
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mong all the acronyms involving employee health savings and reimbursement accounts, one represents a radical departure in that it replaces group health insurance with individual-market options. While the individual coverage health reimbursement arrangement (ICHRA) cash-forcoverage option created in 2019 has generated rave reviews, a resistance to substantive change and misperceptions have resulted in snail-paced adoption. ICHRAs allow employees to purchase a health plan of their choice on exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), through which more than 20 million Americans have bought health insurance. Employers earmark those dollars as part of a defined contribution approach to healthcare benefits whose fixed costs are predictable.
DECEMBER 2024
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