August 1, 2024 • 6 mins
Paul Corvino sits down with John Kao! John Kao is the founder and CEO of Alignment Health, a consumer brand name of Alignment Healthcare (NASDAQ: ALHC).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is CEOs you Should Know. And now from iHeartMedia,
here's Paul Corvino. This is Paul Corvino, Division president of
iHeartMedia in sunny Los Angeles, California, with another episode of
CEOs You Should Know. Today, I have the honor and
privilege of talking with John Ko, a founder and CEO
(00:23):
of Alignment Health, a medicare advantage insurance company based in
Orange serving more than one hundred and sixty five thousand
seniors across the US. Welcome John, Thank you Paul. Today,
what I like to do is learn more about your
company and what you guys do in the community, but
really more about you and how you got to this position.
I want to learn about your journey.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
If you could imagine, you know, back in the day,
a skinny, little Chinese kid, you know, kind of with
a handicapped brother, developmentally disabled brother, and I grew up
in the seventies and I was taking care of him.
So this deep sense of responsibility is something that I've
(01:09):
had at a very early age.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Where'd you grow up in Palatto?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Got a job at Bank of America, did the whole
training thing, corporate finance thing, did that for you know,
ten years or so was recruited into some company, a
healthcare services company called FHP in the nineteen nineties, where
I learned about the healthcare system. Okay, how does it work,
(01:39):
how does it find how does the financing work? What
are the pros and cons of all that? And then
FHP in a company called Pacific Care, merged and kind
of climbed the corporate ladder within Pacific Care. And then
in two thousand and five, my boss, my old boss
(02:04):
at Pazivicare, and I decided to go start a business,
and so we founded a company that we end up.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, now you've got this idea for a business, what
is the idea for the business?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
If you took what was existing in the market, this
is in two thousand and four, two thousand and five,
and you made it better, you made it more truly
patient friendly, Like who really likes their HMO?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Nobody?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
How do you make it a likable platform for patient advocacy?
That's what we basically had the vision of. So we
put these companies together. We shout for the money. We
ended up doing a private equity arrangement with a company
called JP Morgan Private Equity. They put the money in,
We bought the company, and the company's name was called
(02:56):
care More. And so we actually sold care More in
twenty and eleven. And so I'm kind of, you know,
playing with the dog and golfing and doing whatever. But
you know, we also started hearing that the mission that
we started, particularly with care More, after we sold it
(03:16):
wasn't going as good as we thought.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And so after in what way when you say the mission,
the mission.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
To the mission to take a care model that that
was designed to take care of seniors in a way
that the existing health insurance didn't do it. And I'll
explain to you what that is. And just one my next.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Set primarily people on Medicare at that age.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Medicare, yeah, everything is serving people on Medicare, Okay, sixty
five years and older. And so so that was the experience.
And then something interesting happened kind of between selling care
More and starting alignment.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
At a heart attack.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
If you haven't gone through that experience, it's really frightening
because nobody talks to anybody, her primary care doctor, her
specialists outside of the hospital, didn't really coordinate with the hospital,
didn't talk to the hospitalists in the hospital. Nobody talk
to anybody. The drugs that were prescribed in the hospital,
(04:23):
weren't compatible, were the drugs outside the hospital?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Just chaos.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
So here I am, with this experience from care More
so I kind of know the business, and I'm just
like stuck, like who do I go to?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
What do we do?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And so that's when I made the decision. You know,
that's where I felt called a sense of responsibility to
do something. And the whole idea is, we need to
have an organization that not only provides the insurance, but
provides the care delivery through the individuals who need it
the most.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Now you've got this. Now you've got a mission.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Now you've got to I got I got a mantra,
I got a mission.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And how do you go to the next step? Now?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Okay? So then I called a couple of my old
old partners who also kind of CAUSI retired care More
and we kind of got together and we said, we
need we need to finish the job. We need to
finish the job. And we have this crazy, audacious, audacious,
you know, kind of vision of changing healthcare for all seniors,
(05:28):
irrespective of socioeconomic status, irrespective of race, irrespective of anything.
We need to take care of everybody as your mom
or dad as my mom or dad. I would treat
every one of these members or treat them like you know,
we have to treat everybody like they're a parent.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
That's an incredible story. How would seniors in need of
your services get in contact with you?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Alignmenthealthplan dot com. I think is the is the easiest way.
Can I give my cell phone number and I give
myself Okay they're saying no, but I give my cell
phone number. Two members all the time they call me.
I mean seriously, I will call You.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Can go to alignmenthealthplan dot com. We're talking to John Ko,
the founder and CEO of Alignment Health. John, thank you
so much for having you on. This is really interesting.
I hope our listeners enjoyed this as much as I did.
And this is Paul Corvino, Division president of iHeartMedia in
(06:29):
Los Angeles saying thank you for listening to another episode
of CEOs you Should Know. Listen to CEOs you Should
Know on the iHeartRadio app
This is CEOs you Should Know. And now from iHeartMedia,
here's Paul Corvino. This is Paul Corvino, Division president of
iHeartMedia in sunny Los Angeles, California, with another episode of
CEOs You Should Know. Today, I have the honor and
privilege of talking with John Ko, a founder and CEO
(00:23):
of Alignment Health, a medicare advantage insurance company based in
Orange serving more than one hundred and sixty five thousand
seniors across the US. Welcome John, Thank you Paul. Today,
what I like to do is learn more about your
company and what you guys do in the community, but
really more about you and how you got to this position.
I want to learn about your journey.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
If you could imagine, you know, back in the day,
a skinny, little Chinese kid, you know, kind of with
a handicapped brother, developmentally disabled brother, and I grew up
in the seventies and I was taking care of him.
So this deep sense of responsibility is something that I've
(01:09):
had at a very early age.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Where'd you grow up in Palatto?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Got a job at Bank of America, did the whole
training thing, corporate finance thing, did that for you know,
ten years or so was recruited into some company, a
healthcare services company called FHP in the nineteen nineties, where
I learned about the healthcare system. Okay, how does it work,
(01:39):
how does it find how does the financing work? What
are the pros and cons of all that? And then
FHP in a company called Pacific Care, merged and kind
of climbed the corporate ladder within Pacific Care. And then
in two thousand and five, my boss, my old boss
(02:04):
at Pazivicare, and I decided to go start a business,
and so we founded a company that we end up.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, now you've got this idea for a business, what
is the idea for the business?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
If you took what was existing in the market, this
is in two thousand and four, two thousand and five,
and you made it better, you made it more truly
patient friendly, Like who really likes their HMO?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Nobody?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
How do you make it a likable platform for patient advocacy?
That's what we basically had the vision of. So we
put these companies together. We shout for the money. We
ended up doing a private equity arrangement with a company
called JP Morgan Private Equity. They put the money in,
We bought the company, and the company's name was called
(02:56):
care More. And so we actually sold care More in
twenty and eleven. And so I'm kind of, you know,
playing with the dog and golfing and doing whatever. But
you know, we also started hearing that the mission that
we started, particularly with care More, after we sold it
(03:16):
wasn't going as good as we thought.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And so after in what way when you say the mission,
the mission.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
To the mission to take a care model that that
was designed to take care of seniors in a way
that the existing health insurance didn't do it. And I'll
explain to you what that is. And just one my next.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Set primarily people on Medicare at that age.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Medicare, yeah, everything is serving people on Medicare, Okay, sixty
five years and older. And so so that was the experience.
And then something interesting happened kind of between selling care
More and starting alignment.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
At a heart attack.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
If you haven't gone through that experience, it's really frightening
because nobody talks to anybody, her primary care doctor, her
specialists outside of the hospital, didn't really coordinate with the hospital,
didn't talk to the hospitalists in the hospital. Nobody talk
to anybody. The drugs that were prescribed in the hospital,
(04:23):
weren't compatible, were the drugs outside the hospital?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Just chaos.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
So here I am, with this experience from care More
so I kind of know the business, and I'm just
like stuck, like who do I go to?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
What do we do?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And so that's when I made the decision. You know,
that's where I felt called a sense of responsibility to
do something. And the whole idea is, we need to
have an organization that not only provides the insurance, but
provides the care delivery through the individuals who need it
the most.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Now you've got this. Now you've got a mission.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Now you've got to I got I got a mantra,
I got a mission.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And how do you go to the next step? Now?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Okay? So then I called a couple of my old
old partners who also kind of CAUSI retired care More
and we kind of got together and we said, we
need we need to finish the job. We need to
finish the job. And we have this crazy, audacious, audacious,
you know, kind of vision of changing healthcare for all seniors,
(05:28):
irrespective of socioeconomic status, irrespective of race, irrespective of anything.
We need to take care of everybody as your mom
or dad as my mom or dad. I would treat
every one of these members or treat them like you know,
we have to treat everybody like they're a parent.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
That's an incredible story. How would seniors in need of
your services get in contact with you?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Alignmenthealthplan dot com. I think is the is the easiest way.
Can I give my cell phone number and I give
myself Okay they're saying no, but I give my cell
phone number. Two members all the time they call me.
I mean seriously, I will call You.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Can go to alignmenthealthplan dot com. We're talking to John Ko,
the founder and CEO of Alignment Health. John, thank you
so much for having you on. This is really interesting.
I hope our listeners enjoyed this as much as I did.
And this is Paul Corvino, Division president of iHeartMedia in
(06:29):
Los Angeles saying thank you for listening to another episode
of CEOs you Should Know. Listen to CEOs you Should
Know on the iHeartRadio app
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