When Hemant Taneja and I wrote the book “UnHealthcare,” we imagined a future focused on people. People who want to thrive and be happy. People who do not want healthcare to throw up barriers, complications, costs, inequities, mistakes. People who may or may not know that technology is making life better and care easier. People who want help where they are, when they need it. The book was deeply meaningful to write, along with our co-author Kevin Maney.
Now our partnership continues as Hemant has asked me to be CEO of the Health Assurance Foundation, a legally independent entity entrusted with making health assurance tangible. Time for the next leap forward. Read below for the full announcement from Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst.
I am happy to announce that Dr. Stephen Klasko has been named CEO of the Health Assurance Foundation.
Almost ten years ago, Steve and I started writing UnHealthcare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance, which laid out the simple thesis that people don’t want to be treated only as patients when they are sick. They want to thrive without healthcare getting in the way. Care should be accessible at any address, proactive rather than reactive, and tech-enabled rather than tech-burdened. That thesis became the foundation for General Catalyst‘s Health Assurance work.
HAF is a separate, independent organization from GC and HATCo, but shares the same north star: making healthcare affordable, accessible, and proactive. Steve’s mandate is increasingly central to that mission in the age of AI. AI will reduce the enormous administrative burden that consumes roughly a third of every healthcare dollar. But reducing admin costs means transforming the work of the people who do it: nurses, physicians, navigators, schedulers. HAF exists to ensure that transition lifts everyone in healthcare through workforce reskilling, transition infrastructure, education, and community health jobs of the future.
Steve has been part of the GC Famiglia for years as a Catalyst Advisor. He grew Jefferson Health from a $1.8 billion regional system into a $10 billion enterprise and rearchitected it around accessible, proactive care. His entire career has been a bet that healthcare can do more for the people it serves. I look forward to seeing how this next chapter moves us further toward that mission, for people at any time and any address.
