John Kao is the Chairman and CEO of Alignment Health, an award-winning Medicare Advantage company transforming how seniors experience healthcare. He founded Alignment to deliver a simpler, more personal and more accountable model of care for older adults, and has led the company to become one of the industry’s most recognized innovators. Before founding Alignment, John served as president of CareMore Medical Enterprises, where he helped scale one of the nation’s earliest population health models and guided the organization through significant growth and its acquisition by WellPoint. His earlier leadership roles span healthcare delivery, insurance and technology, including senior positions at The TriZetto Group and PacifiCare Health Systems. John serves on the Board of Directors of AHIP and the Board of Advisors at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He was named Founder of the Year by LA Times Studios in 2025 and holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson and a bachelor’s degree from Santa Clara University.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) took constructive steps in its 2027 final rule and rate announcement, particularly on payment integrity and quality measurement. But those steps are not the finish line. Policymakers should further modernize MA to strengthen competition, transparency and accountability. Here’s where to start.
For the past 30 years, even with the various headwinds over time, consistent winners in MA have adapted and adjusted to new standards required for success. Now is no different. Short-term headwinds are just that – short-term.
Healthcare decision-makers, especially at pharmaceutical companies, must prioritize patient input. Data collected from social media listening is a significant step in the right direction.
This is what we have known for years: medical care alone does not equal better health outcomes. Current research by the National Library of Medicine shows that medical care accounts for 10 to 20 percent of the modifiable contributors to healthy outcomes for a population. The lion’s share of the contributors — the other 80 […]