Why is it so hard to disrupt health insurance?

I’m reeling from a critical take from short-selling specialist Hindenburg Research, which was published today on Clover Health. Clover, if you’re not familiar, is a health insurance player backed by notable investor Chamath Palihapitiya. Clover’s shares tumbled off the back of the report. I won’t delve too deeply into that, in part because Clover hasn’t yet responded to the allegations.

But I did want to take a step back and reflect on the crop of companies trying to disrupt the health plan market.

For context on that, I turned to Ari Gottlieb, principal at A2 Strategy Corp, who specializes in health insurance. Gottlieb pays close attention to the slew of venture-funded health plans, including Oscar Health, Bright Health, Clover Health and Devoted Health, including by poring over state filings. Between them, these start-ups have raised tens of billions of dollars from investors.