In all the turmoil in health care, one surprising truth is emerging: Consumers seem increasingly comfortable trading a greater choice of hospitals or doctors for a health plan that costs significantly less money.

“Are they willing to trade choice and access for price? There’s no question about that,” said Mark Newton, the chief executive of Swedish Covenant Hospital, a Chicago hospital that recently teamed with an Illinois insurer, Land of Lincoln Health, to offer a health plan.

This year, nearly half of the plans offered on public health care exchanges are so-called narrow network options, which sharply limit the medical providers whose services will be covered, new data shows. Furthermore, nearly a fifth are considered “ultranarrow networks,” which offer even fewer choices. At the same time, more employers are also embracing the plans for their workers, largely as a way to lower health care costs.

The data, gathered by the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform, is significant, given early criticism from some providers and patients who reacted to these plans last year by arguing they were like the overly restrictive health maintenance organizations, or H.M.O.s, of the 1990s, which were ultimately rejected by consumers.

The financial strategy is relatively simple. Insurers say one way to lower the price of a plan is to limit the number of hospitals and doctors in their networks. They can then ask providers to discount their prices in return for a potentially higher volume of patients; some also say they are trying to pick a select group that provides better care.

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Jeffrey R. Ungvary President