Consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs), health plans in which high deductibles are paired
with tax-advantaged personal medical accounts, are becoming increasingly common. Enrollment
in CDHPs in the employer-sponsored market has grown from 4% to 20% over the last five years
(KFF and HRET 2014). CDHPs are the dominant type of plan on the individual health market,
accounting for nearly four fifths of the plans offered on the federal health insurance exchange.
CDHPs are promoted as a strategy for reducing health care spending and some have suggested
that the increasing prevalence of CDHPs may have contributed to the recent slowdown in US
health care spending (Cutler and Sahni 2013; Haviland et al. 2012).