Why Cigna’s CEO Is Confident We Can Fix American Healthcare

Why Cigna’s CEO Is Confident We Can Fix American Healthcare

From Bold Names by The Wall Street Journal

February 20, 2026 · 26 min

About this episode

David Cordani discusses the challenges and potential solutions for the American healthcare system.

How do we fix the American healthcare system? On this episode of Bold Names, we ask David Cordani, the chairman and CEO of one of America’s biggest health insurers – the Cigna Group. He says rising healthcare costs are driven by two powerful forces: growing demand for care and increasingly expensive new drugs and treatments. But Cordani is still optimistic. He joins WSJ’s Tim Higgins and David Wainer to explain what role insurers play in bringing down costs and how the U.S. can make healthcare more affordable. To watch the video version of this episode, visit our WSJ Podcasts YouTube channel or the video page of WSJ.com. Check Out Past Episodes: Inside Visa’s Tech-Charged Future: From Crypto to AI This Company Has a Plan to Beat Neuralink at the Brain-Computer Interface Game What This Former USAID Head Had to Say About Elon Musk and DOGE Let us know what you think of the show. Email us at BoldNames@wsj.com. Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Read Tim Higgins’s column. Read David Wainer's column. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Tim Higgins

Guest: David Cordani

Topics covered

  • American healthcare
  • health insurance
  • cost reduction
  • Cigna
  • healthcare system

Keywords

  • healthcare costs
  • demand for care
  • new drugs
  • affordability

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Cigna

Books & works: Inside Visa’s Tech-Charged Future: From Crypto to AI

Places: America, U.S.

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