For nearly a decade, John Baackes has helmed L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation’s largest public health plan. The Westlake-based nonprofit insurer’s mission is to provide access to quality health care for Los Angeles County’s low-income communities and to support the safety net to achieve that purpose; the plan serves more than 2.6 million members in the county.
Baackes, who is retiring at the end of this year, took over the plan in 2015, just as enrollments in the state’s Obamacare health insurance exchange were adding 700,000 members to L.A. Care Health Plan in just a year’s span. While Baackes was adjusting the plan to absorb all these new members, the pandemic hit, throwing the health care system into chaos. The pandemic put into sharp relief the inequities in health care, with hundreds of thousands of L.A. Care members bearing the brunt. On top of all this, the county’s surging homeless population has put even more strains on L.A. Care programs.
Prior to joining L.A. Care, Baackes served as president of AmeriHealth Caritas VIP Plans, overseeing its Medicare Advantage business unit. Prior to that position, he served as chief executive of Senior Whole Health, a voluntary health care plan for more than 10,000 low-income seniors in Massachusetts and New York.
The Business Journal spoke with Baackes, discussing trends in health care coverage for low-income households in Los Angeles County and elsewhere, as well as the challenges he’s had to overcome at L.A. Care and his plans after his retirement.
You’ve been involved in providing insurance for low-income people for decades now. How did that start for you?
I did not ever think I would be doing this. I wanted to be an architect. But I wound up with fine arts degree. I was then asked to design a logo for an HMO (health maintenance organization) then I did all their collateral material. I was hired by that HMO as a sales rep. That clicked and 12 years later I was CEO of the place. This HMO…
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