United States · Health insurance · Answers
Can You Buy Health Insurance With No Deductible?
Yes, and it is an ordinary marketplace plan rather than a loophole. In the three states we price county by county, a plan with a $0 medical deductible is the cheapest plan of any kind, premium and care added together, in 314 of 409 counties for a year containing a birth [1]. Eighteen filed plans account for all 314 of those wins, and every one of them is named further down with its issuer, its state and what the year costs on it [1]. The catch is not the monthly price. 193 plans across 22 states advertise that $0 medical deductible while filing a separate drug deductible behind it, a median of $3,500 and as much as $10,150 payable before the plan contributes anything toward a prescription [1], and eight of our eighteen are among them [1]. Premiums here are monthly with the annual figure beside them, at sticker; a premium tax credit comes off the top for most buyers and takes the same number of dollars off every plan in the county.
How often a $0-deductible plan is simply the cheapest plan
409 counties across Florida, Texas and Ohio, one single adult aged 40, sticker prices. "Cheapest of all" means the lowest total of twelve months of premium plus that plan's own filed cost-sharing for the year [1].
| A year in which you… | Counties where a $0-deductible plan is cheapest of all | Share | What it costs there, median |
|---|---|---|---|
| break an arm | 71 of 409 | 17% | $7,719 |
| manage type 2 diabetes | 5 of 409 | 1% | $6,408 |
| have a baby | 314 of 409 | 77% | $9,933 |
1. The short answer
Yes. UnitedHealthcare files a plan called UHC Bronze Copay Focus $0 Indiv Med Ded, and in 169 Texas counties it is not merely on sale but the cheapest plan of any kind for a year containing a birth [1]. It sits at the Expanded Bronze tier, which is the tier most buyers assume carries the largest deductible on the market.
The reason you have probably never been shown one is arithmetic rather than concealment. A plan that pays from the first dollar has to collect that money somewhere, so it charges more per month than the high-deductible plans above it, and the default view on every comparison screen is sorted by exactly that monthly figure. Paying the extra premium is worth it when the year contains enough care to have cleared a large deductible anyway. No screen can tell you which year you get.
2. When it is the cheapest plan, and when it is not
For a year containing a normal delivery, a plan with a $0 medical deductible is the cheapest plan available in 314 of the 409 counties we price [1]. For a year whose only event is a broken arm, 71. For a year of managing type 2 diabetes, five.
What moves between those three numbers is how a plan recovers its money. A diabetes year in these filings is mostly generic prescriptions and a handful of office visits, and a plan can price those with flat copays that apply before any deductible is involved, so a Bronze plan with a large deductible can carry a cheap diabetes year without the buyer ever touching it. A delivery cannot be priced that way. It arrives as one large facility bill, it lands against the deductible in full, and a plan with no deductible starts paying on the first dollar of it.
That is also why the tier mix runs the opposite way to what the question implies. Twelve of the eighteen winning plans are Expanded Bronze and six are Gold [1]. Gold carries the highest premiums on the marketplace, and it is still the cheapest plan overall in 40% of counties once a birth is priced into the year [1,2].
3. The eighteen plans, named
Every plan below is a real product with a real price, filed with CMS for plan year 2026 and on sale in the counties named beside it.
Every plan with a $0 filed medical deductible that is the cheapest plan of any kind, in at least one county, for a year containing a normal delivery [1]. Grouped by issuer, plan name and state, because one product name can be two filings: UnitedHealthcare sells this name in Texas and Florida with different drug deductibles behind it. Totals are twelve months of premium plus the plan's own filed cost-sharing for that year, at sticker.
| Plan, as filed | State | Metal | Counties it wins | What the year costs on it | Drug deductible behind the $0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UnitedHealthcare, UHC Bronze Copay Focus $0 Indiv Med Ded ($0 Virtual Urgent Care) | TX | Expanded Bronze | 169 | $9,697 to $11,077 | $5,500 before it pays for a prescription |
| Oscar Health Insurance, Gold Elite Saver Plus | OH | Gold | 31 | $8,006 to $8,853 | None filed |
| Oscar Insurance Company, Bronze Elite + PCP Saver Plus | TX | Expanded Bronze | 22 | $10,158 to $10,452 | None filed |
| Florida Blue HMO (a BlueCross BlueShield FL company), myBlue Bronze 2129 ($35 PCP Visits / $75 Specialist Visits / Rewards) | FL | Expanded Bronze | 13 | $11,085 to $14,382 | $2,100 before it pays for a prescription |
| CHRISTUS Health Plan, CHRISTUS Gold + Fitness ($0 Deductible, $5 PCP, $0 Generic Rx, $0… | TX | Gold | 12 | $9,102 to $10,115 | None filed |
| Oscar Health Maintenance Organization of Florida, Gold Elite Saver Plus | with AdventHealth | FL | Gold | 12 | $8,580 to $9,893 | None filed |
| Oscar Health Maintenance Organization of Florida, Bronze Elite + PCP Saver Plus | FL | Expanded Bronze | 11 | $10,559 to $11,565 | None filed |
| UnitedHealthcare, UHC Bronze Copay Focus $0 Indiv Med Ded ($0 Virtual Urgent Care, No… | OH | Expanded Bronze | 10 | $10,395 to $10,700 | $4,500 before it pays for a prescription |
| Capital Health Plan, Capital Health Plan HMO Gold 3000 | FL | Gold | 9 | $8,967 to $12,071 | None filed |
| UnitedHealthcare, UHC Kelsey-Seybold Bronze Copay Focus $0 Indiv Med Ded | TX | Expanded Bronze | 5 | $9,468 | $5,500 before it pays for a prescription |
| UnitedHealthcare, UHC Bronze Copay Focus $0 Indiv Med Ded ($0 Virtual Urgent Care) | FL | Expanded Bronze | 4 | $10,676 to $11,759 | $4,500 before it pays for a prescription |
| Florida Blue (BlueCross BlueShield FL), BlueSelect Bronze 2139 ($50 PCP Visits / Rewards) | FL | Expanded Bronze | 3 | $11,418 to $16,578 | $2,100 before it pays for a prescription |
| Oscar Insurance Corporation of Ohio, Gold Elite Saver Plus | Cleveland Clinic | OH | Gold | 3 | $12,009 to $12,077 | None filed |
| Molina Healthcare, Molina Bronze Premier with $0 Medical Deductible | FL | Expanded Bronze | 3 | $11,683 to $11,795 | None filed |
| Florida Blue (BlueCross BlueShield FL), BlueOptions Bronze 24J01-17 ($50 PCP Visits / Rewards) | FL | Expanded Bronze | 2 | $13,205 to $14,047 | None filed |
| Florida Blue (BlueCross BlueShield FL), BlueSelect Gold 1535 ($0 Deductible / $15 PCP Visits / $75 Specialist… | FL | Gold | 2 | $10,297 to $10,823 | None filed |
| Florida Blue HMO (a BlueCross BlueShield FL company), myBlue Bronze 2149 ($35 PCP Visits / $75 Specialist Visits / Rewards) | FL | Expanded Bronze | 2 | $11,887 to $12,472 | $2,100 before it pays for a prescription |
| Ambetter Health, Elite Bronze | FL | Expanded Bronze | 1 | $14,028 | $3,800 before it pays for a prescription |
18 rows — scroll inside the table to read them all.
Two rows in that table carry the same product name, UHC Bronze Copay Focus $0 Indiv Med Ded, one filed in Texas and one in Florida. They are different filings with different HIOS ids and different drug deductibles, $5,500 and $4,500 respectively [1]. Treating them as one plan would have printed one of those two numbers against both states.
4. The drug deductible behind the zero
Eight of the eighteen file a separate drug deductible, at $2,100, $3,800, $4,500 or $5,500 [1]. Those plans account for 207 of the 314 county wins, so the majority of the time a $0-deductible plan is the cheapest plan in a county, it is a plan with something behind the zero.
None of that is hidden. It is in the filing, and it is in the Summary of Benefits and Coverage under prescription drugs. It is simply not in the field labelled "deductible", which is the field every comparison screen puts in front of you.
The wider count is 193 plans across 22 states, at a median of $3,500 and a maximum of $10,150 [1]. Issuers do not even agree among themselves about what that figure means for a year of chronic care: 157 of the 193 file $0 of drug cost-sharing against a standard diabetes year while 36 charge the deductible [1]. We publish what each one filed rather than imposing one reading, and it changes the published answer in five of our 409 counties, all in Texas [1].
We could not work out why a carrier would file a $5,500 drug deductible and then file nothing against a year of type 2 diabetes, which is close to the definition of a year spent filling prescriptions. The files do not explain it and we are not going to guess in public.
The longer version of this, including the 469 plans that charge a copay and a coinsurance for the same service, is at the cost-sharing nobody reads.
5. The other two years
The same test applied to the other two care years. A $0 deductible wins far less often here, and the plans that manage it are almost entirely different ones [1].
| Plan, as filed | State | The year it wins | Counties | What the year costs on it | For example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oscar Health Insurance, Bronze Elite + PCP Saver Plus | OH | a year in which you break an arm | 31 | $6,631 to $7,254 | Brown County, Butler County, Champaign County… |
| Oscar Insurance Company, Bronze Elite + PCP Saver Plus | TX | a year in which you break an arm | 31 | $7,719 to $8,052 | Atascosa County, Austin County, Bandera County… |
| Florida Blue (BlueCross BlueShield FL), BlueSelect Bronze 2139 ($50 PCP Visits / Rewards) | FL | a year in which you break an arm | 9 | $8,050 to $14,018 | Charlotte County, Citrus County, Hendry County… |
| UnitedHealthcare, UHC Kelsey-Seybold Bronze Copay Focus $0 Indiv Med Ded | TX | a year in which you manage type 2 diabetes | 5 | $6,408 | Brazoria County, Fort Bend County, Galveston County… |
Oscar files the same product, Bronze Elite + PCP Saver Plus, in Texas and in Ohio, and in each state it takes 31 counties for a fracture year [1]. That is the whole of its category there. The one plan that wins a diabetes county at all is UnitedHealthcare's Kelsey-Seybold Bronze Copay Focus, in five Texas counties around Houston, and that is also the plan whose $5,500 drug deductible its own filed diabetes scenario does not charge [1].
6. How to check a plan before you buy it
Open the Summary of Benefits and Coverage and read three rows: the deductible, the prescription drug section, and the out-of-pocket maximum. A $0 in the first row tells you what the plan does not charge you before a medical service, and it is the only thing that $0 tells you, because a drug deductible is filed and displayed as a separate figure in a separate section of the same document. It says nothing about the second row.
Having read all 409 counties, I would now treat "$0 deductible" as a reason to open the drug row rather than as a reason to shortlist the plan. Half the appeal of that phrase is that it sounds like an absence of conditions, and on eight of these eighteen plans there is a four-figure condition sitting one section further down the same document.
7. What these numbers do not cover
Four limits travel with everything above. This prices one buyer, a single non-smoking 40-year-old with no dependants, and a household of any other shape sees different premiums and a different answer. The three care years are CMS's own stylised courses of treatment, applied identically in every county so that the counties can be read against each other, which is also why none of them will resemble the year you actually have. Prices are sticker, before a premium tax credit, and the credit lowers every plan in a county by the same amount without reordering them [1,3,4]. Catastrophic plans are excluded throughout, because ACA §1302(e) sells them only to buyers under 30 or holding a hardship exemption [1,2].
Networks and drug formularies sit outside all of it. A $0 deductible is worth nothing if the plan does not cover the drug you take, and the filings we read do not say which drugs are on which formulary.
Where to go from here: the county-by-county prices for Texas, the carrier-level verdicts at best and worst marketplace plans, and what you should budget for a Texas year at average cost of health insurance in Texas.
Frequently asked questions
Can you get health insurance with no deductible?
Is a plan with no deductible worth it?
Why does a $0-deductible plan still charge me for prescriptions?
Do no-deductible plans cost more per month?
What is the cheapest health insurance with no deductible?
Does a subsidy change whether a $0-deductible plan is the right buy?
Sources
Every figure on this page is footnoted to one of the primary documents below. Reliability tiers: A = regulator, court or filed document; B = reputable publisher or carrier official page; C = user-generated (reported by users).
- 1.Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — Qualified Health Plan Landscape and Benefits & Cost Sharing Public Use Files, plan year 2026. https://www.cms.gov/marketplace/resources/data/public-use-filesTier A · Regulator / court / filed document · Published 2026-08-01 · Accessed 2026-09-03
- 2.Best Worst Insurance — Annual cost of every marketplace plan in 409 counties, ranked two ways (PY2026). https://www.bestworstinsurance.com/data/us-health/county-plan-costs.csvTier A · Regulator / court / filed document · Published 2026-09-19 · Accessed 2026-09-19
- 3.Internal Revenue Service — Revenue Procedure 2025-25 — Applicable Percentage Table for 2026. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-25-25.pdfTier A · Regulator / court / filed document · Published 2025-07-18 · Accessed 2026-09-19
- 4.US Department of Health and Human Services, ASPE — 2025 Poverty Guidelines. https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelinesTier A · Regulator / court / filed document · Published 2025-01-17 · Accessed 2026-09-19