Consumer-Directed Health Plan members likely to be older than previously thought

A new analysis of seven years of consumer-driven health plan (CDHP) membership shows that enrollees in these plans were less likely than those with traditional insurance coverage to be between the ages of 21 and 34 according to a report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

This goes against the conventional thinking about CDHP plan participants, which assumes these health plans are a more attractive insurance option for this demographic, since the young, on average, use less healthcare. The report “Characteristics of the Population with Consumer-Driven and High-Deductible Health Plans, 2005–2012” found similar results in its comparison of people with high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) and those with traditional insurance, as well.

“It is very difficult to generalize the differences in characteristics among CDHP enrollees, high-deductible enrollees, and individuals with traditional coverage, but a few differences stand out,” said Paul Fronstin, director of EBRI’s Health Research and Education Program, and author of the report, in a press release. “The study found that people who enroll in CDHPs do typically seem to be in better health, with higher education and higher incomes than those with traditional coverage.”

Significant findings of the report, which used seven years of data from EBRI’s annual consumerism in healthcare surveys, include:

• CDHP enrollees have consistently reported better health status than traditional-plan enrollees;
• CDHP enrollees were roughly twice as likely as individuals with traditional coverage to have college or post-graduate education in nearly all years of the survey;
• The CDHP population was more likely than traditional-plan enrollees to be in households with $150,000 or more in income in every year except 2009 and 2010;
• Few differences in plan enrollment type were found by race;
• In the earlier years of the survey (2005–2009), the CDHP population was more likely than the population with traditional coverage to have that coverage through small employers (between two and 49 employees), but more recently there have been no statistically significant differences by employer size between the CDHP population and that of the population with traditional coverage.

According to EBRI, participation in CDHPs and HDHPs with an accompanying health savings account (HSA) has been steadily increasing. In 2012, 36 percent of large employers offered some form of an HSA-eligible plan. In all, roughly 25 million people – or about 14.6 percent of the private insurance market – were enrolled in either a CDHP or HSA-eligible plan last year.

[See also: EBRI: Consumer Directed Health Plan members more likely to research healthcare costs]