The Ideal Health Plan characteristics suggested here are for use in either public or private organizational settings and are appropriate for large, medium or small size employee groups. The Ideal Health Plan is presented as a long term goal for an organization and is expected to be achieved by small increments of plan design change over a period of years.  In other words, it is anticipated that it may take several years to get all aspects of the Ideal Health Plan into effect. These recommended characteristics are not necessarily fully compatible with the plan design provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  The ACA provides an unnecessarily generous plan design that will likely continue to create a higher total cost than is necessary.

Published 2016.