- Health insurance startup Oscar Health is working with the Department of Health and Human Services on a website the agency is developing in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Business Insider has learned.
- Oscar on Friday released a COVID-19 risk assessment survey and testing center locator. The code used to power those tools is being shared with HHS, Oscar confirmed.
- "We agreed to help the Government because it's the right thing to do," a spokeswoman for Oscar told Business Insider in a statement.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Oscar Health is working with the Department of Health and Human Services to power parts of a website the agency is building.
The health-insurance startup sells coverage on the individual exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act to small businesses as well as coverage to seniors through Medicare Advantage plans.
Oscar was co-founded by Josh Kushner, whose brother Jared is one of President Donald Trump's senior advisers and his son-in-law.
As part of the arrangement, Oscar is sharing the code that it built internally for a COVID-19 risk assessment survey and a testing center locator. The tool was made available to the public on Friday.
"Last week, the Oscar team built a COVID-19 risk assessment and testing center locator for our members," a spokeswoman for Oscar told Business Insider in a statement. "The U.S Government asked if we could share our code so that they could customize it for the website they are developing. We agreed to help the Government because it's the right thing to do."
The spokeswoman told Business Insider it shared the code it had developed for free. "As a company, we believe it is important to step up and do all we can right now."
HHS reached out to Oscar about the tools on Friday. The tools had not yet been deployed as of Thursday afternoon.
HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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- The US is struggling to ramp up testing for the coronavirus. Here's how healthcare giants and startups are racing to help.
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