In this episode of Neural Compass, host Mark Jacobstein sits down with Andy Slavitt, founding managing partner of Town Hall Ventures, former acting administrator of CMS, and the man who rescued healthcare.gov, for a conversation about what it will actually take to rebuild a health system designed in the 1960s for a world that no longer exists.
The diagnosis Andy keeps returning to is structural: we built an acute care system for a chronic care world, and we've been living with that mismatch for thirty years. AI doesn't patch the gap. It gives us a genuine shot at redesigning the whole thing. And unlike every other technology wave in healthcare, this one people actually want.
New episodes every two weeks. This one covers the full picture: product, policy, incentives, and why Andy thinks the most contrarian thing you can say about AI and empathy right now is probably true.
This episode covers:
- Why people are going to ChatGPT as their doctor and why Andy thinks that's more opportunity than crisis
- The acute care system built for the 1960s that's still trying to serve a chronic disease population
- Why AI is the first healthcare technology that didn't have to be coerced into adoption
- The new CMS access framework and what it means to reimburse care that isn't delivered in a room by a human
- Andy's contrarian view: that AI may already be doing empathy better than a system that can't give you ten extra minutes
About the Speakers
Mark Jacobstein, Host
is the co-founder and president of Jimini Health. A longtime entrepreneur at the intersection of AI and health tech, he now leads Jimini’s mission to transform mental and behavioral health through clinically grounded, AI-powered care.
Andy Slavitt, Guest
is founding managing partner of Town Hall Ventures and one of the most consequential figures in American healthcare over the past two decades. He rescued healthcare.gov during its catastrophic early days, ran Medicare and Medicaid under the Obama administration, and led much of the federal COVID response under Biden.
He now invests in companies trying to use AI to solve the problems the system was never designed to address, starting with the fact that we built an acute care infrastructure for what is now overwhelmingly a chronic disease population.
Town Hall Ventures is an investor in Jimini Health.
For healthcare executives, researchers, investors, and anyone who thinks the mental health crisis deserves serious answers — this is the show.