Many investors and founders shy away from building Medicaid-focused companies. Andy Slavitt – policymaker, investor and ‘In the Bubble’ host – joins us to discuss why this is a huge mistake. Medicaid now covers 85 million Americans and is where the opportunities to build meaningful and high impact companies are the greatest.  We talk about Andy’s work at Town Hall Ventures and his takeaways from leading CMS in the Obama administration and COVID strategy in the early days of the Biden administration.  

We dive into:

• Why Medicaid-focused founders should think of states as 50 potential customers, not as governments

• A few of his portfolio companies: Eleanor Health, Cityblock Health, Plume and Spark Pediatrics

• How states can get better results from Medicaid managed care

• The wide range of impacts from Medicaid expansion: lower medical debt and bankruptcy, increase in home ownership, and improvements in maternal, child health, cancer and cardiac outcomes

Andy talks about the deep impact on people’s lives from having Medicaid coverage:

“In every single study, all of those outcomes – every single one of them that are quality of life and health related – are better under Medicaid expansion. And it makes sense. If you put a little bit more money in people's pockets, put a little more security underneath them, they're going to live their lives, they are going to take that risk and take a better job, they are going to not worry as much … the kids are going to be healthier and more stable.”