Can Oscar Health’s new shopping platform increase individual insurance, ICHRA uptake?

Enhanced premium tax credits may be gone, but payers still have ambitious plans for the individual insurance market.

For one, Oscar Health launched a new online platform called Lucie Health Marketplace to help brokers, employers, and consumers compare and enroll in individual health plans, ancillary benefits, and supplemental benefits on April 20.

CEO Mark Bertolini told Healthcare Brew he envisions this as the “Airbnb” of individual health coverage, revolutionizing the insurance experience the same way the short-term rental company provided a straightforward way to peruse and book accommodations in one place.

“We have the opportunity on the consumer side to start offering them access to services that they can buy more effectively, conveniently, and cheaper than they get through the healthcare system today,” Bertolini said.

The deets. Lucie features AI-enabled guidance and supplemental benefits from companies like insurer Aflac alongside the same plans that are available on the ACA marketplace, even including plans from Oscar’s competitors. (Federal regulations require Oscar to offer all qualified plans available in a certain market.)

“We’re about creating the buyer experience, not controlling all of it and [having] it come to us,” Bertolini said.

Getting broker buy-in. Lucie is a potential “accelerator” of the individual insurance market and could increase uptake of individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements (ICHRAs), Erik Wissig, COO of SureCo, a benefits platform specializing in the administration of ICHRAs for medium- and large-sized employers, told us. SureCo has previously partnered with Oscar.

“[Lucie] looks like it can handle a lot, and it definitely sits as supporting that ICHRA movement in the market,” Wissig said.

ICHRAs are tax-advantaged arrangements that began in 2020 to allow employers of all sizes to give money to employees to buy their own individual health coverage rather than providing coverage via an employer plan. Public data is sparse, but trade and advocacy organization the HRA Council estimated employers offered ICHRAs to at least 200,000 employees and their dependents in 2025 in its most recent report.

Wissig said broker awareness and education is one of the biggest barriers to ICHRA growth right now.

He views the Lucie marketplace as an ally in breaking down this barrier rather than a competitor against his company, even though SureCo also offers its own ICHRA enrollment platform alongside its other administrative services.

“We welcome that overall promotion and educational force,” he said.