CEOInterviews.AI
Start App
Try: AI strategy tariffs earnings guidance layoffs interest rates growth

Mark Bertolini

Chief Executive Officer, Oscar Health, Inc.

Search every verified Mark Bertolini interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Mark Bertolini, the former chairman and CEO of Aetna and current CEO of Oscar Health, appeared on a podcast in July 2026 where he discussed his views on the U.S. healthcare system. He described the employer-sponsored health insurance model as an "80-year-old wartime workaround" that nobody is incentivized to fix. Bertolini argued that the system should be replaced by a single risk pool for all Americans, with a portable, tax-advantaged account similar to a Roth IRA that individuals would control and keep regardless of their employer. He stated that "we need to pull every American into one pool" and give them visibility into costs and optionality on how to spend their money. Bertolini also criticized American CEOs for their response to the 2017 corporate tax cuts, saying they used the savings for stock buybacks rather than increasing wages or improving benefits for employees. During the interview, he recounted a personal story about his son's hospice care, which led him to obtain a single-patient compassionate use exception from the FDA for an intravenous lipid treatment not then available in the United States. He described the experience as an example of how ideas can be improved through deep thought and collaboration.

Recent appearances

Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“The biggest moment for American CEOs to stand up and show their belief in the fact that their employees are as important as the machines they build to do their build their products was when they got a huge the biggest tax cut in American history. They had then instead of giving that to their employees with increased wages and better benefits, they turned around and did the largest corporate buyback of stock ever seen”

“We need to pull every American into one pool and we need to give them visibility into what it costs and we need to give them optionality on how to spend their money and we need to create a bucket. We need to separate the financing from the investment decision. We need to create a Roth IRA like account where whatever organization is funding them. The money goes into that bucket and it's their money.”

“We're now getting clear of that. Um you can see that in the in the PEs on all the insurance companies. And so I think this idea that Americans are fed up with the way they get coverage today and they want something different. We are now free to invest and to focus on those things, particularly with ECRA. And I was in Washington yesterday talking about the regulatory changes we need on HSAs to create this shift so tha”

“Last year, two out of five Americans, 40% of Americans, borrowed $74.9 billion from banks to pay their out-of-pocket costs for health care. $75 billion bucks. So, you know, that's what we need consumers to have the ability to do is to say, 'No, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do this.' And And so we need to give them the tools and the data in order to do it so that they can make these decisions.”

“The average American's making $60,000 a year. Their average health care costs are $16,000 a year for a family of four. Yeah, it's crazy. Right. No transparency, no ability to shop, it is what you get. The next is housing. The next is transportation, then there's groceries, and then there's education. All those other four you can shop. That's why new car margins are 2%. Cuz you can go find the car you want. You pick w”

“We're going from a defined benefit model to a defined contribution where the employer gives the money to the employee and says go buy your insurance. Is that going to be something that's a you know, the transition from pensions to define you know, 401(k)s took a long time. Is that going to be a similar transition where maybe today the IRA is very small, but in 20 years it's going to be almost everybody and it's going”

Other executives at Oscar Health, Inc.

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →