On a special episode (first released on January 16th, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast: The brazen murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in broad daylight in midtown Manhattan last year has opened the floodgates to an outpouring of anger and frustration with the health insurance industry. Across the country, whether it’s about skyrocketing financial costs or access to care, there seems to be a wide agreement that health insurance in America is broken. The question is how to fix it. How can policy incentivize the industry to be better stewards of the health of its members without fueling unsustainable costs or incentivizing waste? What solutions are on the table and how might they shape the future of health care in America? Here to help us dig into the details is Vivian Ho, the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics at Rice University.