COD E R E D

subsidized initiatives offer exposure to the plan and may build loyalty when the individual or familyis in a position to obtain commercial health insurance.Products with varied financing mechanisms provided employers and individuals withgreater choice and may have enhanced value. Nevertheless, giving the uninsured such choicesdid not have consistent appeal in every market.The initial offering of some new products had higher than normal administrative costs.Outside sources may scrutinize the percentage allocated to administration, but must also realizethat plans usually need enhanced infrastructure to support new initiatives.Target Population: Many uninsured initiatives restricted program eligibility due to limitedfunds to support the product or in order to avoid duplication with other coverage for the uninsured.Most of the individual products that were reviewed established income eligibility limits. Some ofthe private sector products with more restrictive eligibility criteria than others experienced mixedresults on enrollment. Two health plans which did not reach desired membership in their productshad conducted preliminary assessments before initiating their programs, but attracted manyapplicants who were not eligible. Regardless of the target population, most new healthinsurance products took time to attract members. Some successful initiatives did not achieveenrollment goals until one to two years after product launch.Marketing: This is a critical feature to the success of private initiatives. The mereexistence of a quality product at a low cost does not guarantee that the target population willpurchase it. For small group products, a multifaceted approach to marketing is generallyassociated with higher enrollment. Successful small group initiatives that attracted more than10,000 members used direct mail, brokers, the Internet, toll-free telephone numbers, andtelevision, print, and radio advertisements. Among these different strategies, health planrepresentatives indicated that brokers were essential in securing new members. Indeed,programs that had difficulty with enrollment either did not use brokers or worked with a limitednumber to recruit customers. Brokers are not only a bridge between health plans and consumers,but also educate employers about the value of health insurance and the different options availablefor purchase.Among individual products, a greater number of marketing strategies did not necessarilytranslate into a higher number of enrollees. Health plans offering individual products were morelikely than those selling small group products to use direct approaches such as distributing flyersand holding community events as part of a marketing campaign. The three health careorganizations that managed to enroll more than 10,000 relied on a variety of marketingtechniques, but few were common among the three. The use of the Internet and toll-free numbersis common among the three individual products, but it is also shared among nearly all programsexamined in this study. All three individual products did, however, conduct extensive marketresearch to determine which channels would most effectively reach their target population.Providers: Provider choice affected program marketability and price, as networks were afactor for some applicants in assessing the product’s value. Nearly all the health careorganizations that developed insurance products used the same network as used for their otherproducts, concluding that product success depended in part on having a network identical to thatof other commercial coverage. While a broad network did not guarantee that consumers wouldpurchase a product, a restricted panel did have negative consequences on enrollment.D-30