Hey, everybody, it's Kyle.

I'm Risdahl.

Thanks for downloading this episode of the Corner Office podcast.

Open enrollments for health care through the Affordable Care Act is now underway and in a lot of workplaces, including mine.

This week, we are talking to Bernard Tyson.

He's the chairman and CEO of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and hospitals known better probably to you as Kaiser Permanente,

one of this country's biggest health care and hospital organizations. And as you're going to hear in this conversation, this is no boring time to be a boss in the health care industry. But for Mr. Tyson and Kaiser Permanente, they are not backing down. High costs, poor coverage or poor health are all things he's thinking about. Also, by the way, political drama. Here you go. Bernard Tyson, the CEO of Kaiser Permanente. Mr. Tyson, welcome to the program, sir. Thank you. Do I have it right that you wanted to work in hospitals, like not necessarily as a doctor, but work in hospital since you were a kid? Yes, actually, I wanted to be a doctor. Did you? Yes. Originally, I wanted to be a doctor, but I've always wanted to work in hospitals, and I've been very fortunate that in my career I have had the privilege of running hospitals.

Why, what is it about hospitals that is attractive to you?

The whole mission of what a hospital does, it's there to take care of people in need.

And I think the thing that fascinates me still about hospitals is that you have the whole continuum of life right in the four walls of a hospital.

You could go on one floor.

You can see a family crime because they just brought a new baby in the world. You can go on

another floor. You see a family crime because it's the end of the life for someone else. And so you

have the whole continuum of life going on inside of the four walls of a hospital.

The catch, of course, is that within those four walls also, birth and death,

and you've got to run a business, which is a complicating factor because it's really emotional,

it's difficult, and it's complicated. Well, but when you look at the evolution of health care today,

and specifically, you look at the approach that we take at Kaiser Permanente. The hospital still

plays a critical role, but it's not the central role, because now we're able to take care of many

of the illnesses outside of the hospital setting. And so there are different models and different

methods that our physicians in the Permanente medical groups apply to the needs of millions of people.

So you look at our capabilities that we have right now with telehealth, for example, that allows a member to have a personal relationship with their physician, and they can do things via technology

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