Why Thrive Capital Is Still Buying Oscar Health While Everyone Else Panics

There are moments in every investor’s journey where the market’s mood and the fundamentals of a company drift so far apart that it feels surreal. Oscar Health is one of those moments. The stock is volatile. Sentiment is fragile. But behind the scenes, something different is happening.

At the center of this quiet shift is Thrive Capital.

While retail investors debate headlines about the Affordable Care Act or worry about leadership turnover, Thrive is doing the opposite. They are buying shares. Not talking. Not speculating. Buying.

Thrive Capital significantly increased its stake in Oscar Health. The firm made multiple open market purchases. Joshua Kushner, Oscar’s co-founder and Thrive’s managing partner, personally added to his holdings. There was no hedge or fanfare. Just accumulation based on long-term belief.

This kind of behavior is rare in public markets. Thrive is not playing for a quarterly win. They are acting like owners. Their recent moves suggest they still view Oscar as one of the most promising long-term infrastructure bets in American healthcare.

How Thrive Capital Thinks

To understand what this means, it helps to study how Thrive Capital operates.

Thrive is not a momentum shop. They are not chasing IPO pops or trend cycles. They are known for building relationships early and staying involved for the long haul. Their portfolio includes Stripe, Nubank, Unity, Airtable, OpenAI, and Instagram. Most of these companies were backed before the mainstream noticed them.

Thrive invests with a founder mindset. They go deep into operational structure, market dynamics, and customer experience. They look for category-defining platforms. They also prefer companies that are difficult to replicate and have real long-term staying power.

Oscar fits that mold. Thrive helped launch it. Kushner remains on the board. Their latest purchases are not short-term trades. They are a signal that Thrive still sees Oscar as an unfinished but powerful bet on the future of healthcare delivery.

ACA Volatility vs Structural Opportunity

The ACA created the conditions for Oscar’s first phase of growth. But the next wave may come from something less obvious: the ICHRA market.

ICHRA stands for Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements. These plans allow employers to give workers tax-free dollars to buy health insurance on individual marketplaces like those where Oscar operates. ICHRA is growing fast, especially among small and mid-sized businesses. It bridges the old model of employer-sponsored plans with the new model of individual choice.

Oscar is structurally positioned to lead in this transition. They already have the technology stack, onboarding tools, and user engagement mechanisms that make individual health coverage less painful and more effective. As more employers adopt ICHRA, Oscar could see rising demand from both new members and new partnerships.

Thrive understands this. They are not betting on ACA expansion alone. They are betting on Oscar’s infrastructure advantage across multiple coverage models. This is a pivot most legacy insurers are not equipped to make.

The Mispricing That Creates the Upside

Oscar trades like a broken company. The fundamentals say otherwise.

Revenue is growing. Member counts are rising. Medical loss ratios are stabilizing. The company has reduced its underwriting volatility. Strategic partnerships are increasing. Cash flow guidance is improving. Yet the stock price implies a business that is either shrinking or failing.

That disconnect creates an asymmetric opportunity. The downside is largely known. The upside is misunderstood. If Oscar executes on its cost structure, grows ICHRA exposure, and maintains member satisfaction, the stock will likely rerate well before perfect profitability is achieved.

This is not a bet on perfection. It is a bet on improving fundamentals against a backdrop of extreme pessimism. Thrive’s behavior confirms this view. They are not just holding. They are doubling down.

Why This Bet Still Makes Sense

Some readers will ask a fair question. If Apollo and Oscar both have 3x to 5x potential, why own Oscar at all when Apollo is clearly more stable?

The answer lies in time horizon and convexity. Apollo is the compounding machine. Oscar is the outlier bet with more torque. Apollo earns its return steadily. Oscar could deliver a large part of its return suddenly if investor perception shifts or a policy tailwind develops.

Oscar does not need perfect conditions to succeed. It needs consistent execution and a mildly supportive policy environment. The presence of Thrive, alongside a management team with real operational depth, supports this scenario. Thrive is not naive to policy cycles. They are actively factoring them in. They are also positioning Oscar to benefit from trends that go beyond the ACA.

Trust Builds Quietly

Trust is not built on stock charts. It is built on behavior. Thrive’s continued investment, even while the stock trades near historic lows, is a powerful behavioral signal. It says more than a dozen analyst upgrades or investor letters ever could.

FJ Research focuses on conviction-based investing. We do not buy what is popular. We buy what is mispriced, misunderstood, and misjudged. Oscar fits this framework today more than ever. Not because the stock has gone down. But because the ownership signal is getting stronger, not weaker.

The retail narrative is wrong. Oscar is not a company in distress. It is a company in transition, backed by one of the best early-stage investors of this era, supported by durable technology, and positioned to benefit from the evolution of healthcare incentives.

There is risk, of course. But the mispricing of that risk is exactly what creates the return.

Final Word

We do not buy volatility. We buy opportunity. Right now, Oscar offers one of the clearest examples of a durable asymmetric setup in public markets.

If you believe Thrive Capital knows how to spot and build long-term value, then their behavior in Oscar tells you all you need to know.

They are not letting it go bust. They are building it for the next chapter.