Business View - August 2015 15
Silver plans from nonprofit insurers are least ex-
pensive in 58percent of counties that have both
nonprofit and for-profit silver plans
Four of the five largest health insurance companies
by market share in the United States are for-profit
insurers, but over 60 percent of health plans with
at least 100,000 enrollees are from nonprofit insur-
ers. HealthPocket compared Affordable Care Act
(Obamacare) premiums from nonprofit and for-prof-
it insurers to determine how frequently nonprofit or
for-profit insurers offered the lowest premiums in
counties that used the government’s health insur-
ance marketplace, Healthcare.gov. In most counties
where nonprofit and for-profit insurers both offered
Obamacare health plans, nonprofit insurers offered
the cheapest premiums for metal plans.
Silver plans were the most popular metal plans dur-
ing the 2015 Obamacare open enrollment period,
making up 67 percent of plan selections. Health-
Pocket found that nonprofit insurers offered the
lowest silver plan premiums in 1,072 of the 1,841
counties where both nonprofit and for-profit insur-
ers offered silver plans, a 58 percent to 42 percent
advantage over for-profit insurers. For bronze, gold,
and platinum plans, nonprofit insurers offered the
lowest premiums in about half of the counties
where both for-profit insurers and nonprofit insur-
ers offered plans.
On average, the lowest available premiums from for-
profit insurers were 0 percent to 2 percent higher
than the lowest available premiums from nonprofit
insurers for bronze, silver, and gold plans. However
nonprofit insurers offered 11 percent lower pre-
miums than for-profit insurers for platinum plans.
Among the four metal levels, the platinum plans
were the least popular in 2015, accounting for only
3 percent of plan selections. However platinum
plans generally pay the greatest percentage of cov-
ered healthcare costs for enrollees among the four
types of metal plans.
HealthPocket’s analysis compared Obamacare pre-
miums for 40-year-old non-smokers in the 34 states
on the healthcare.gov federal marketplace. Plans on
state-based marketplaces were not included in the
analysis, nor were off-exchange Obamacare plans,
Obamacare catastrophic plans, Medicare plans,
short-term insurance plans, and Medicaid plans.
Study: Nonprofit
Obamacare Insurers
Have Lower Premiums
than For-Profit Insurers
in Most Counties that
Use Healthcare.gov
