What I'm Building — Venteur

I believe people deserve control over their healthcare. While we may have control in the doctor's office, employers determine the one-size-fits-no-one insurance that shapes our access and price to doctors. At Venteur, we're working to change that — building a personalized system that empowers individuals.

We work with employers to help them provide tax-free money that employees can use to choose and own their own insurance coverage. This gives individuals real control over both access (networks) and affordability (coverage). This model is called an Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA), and it can be offered instead of a traditional group health plan.

Why This Matters to Me

I grew up on an individual/family health insurance plan. I know firsthand what it means to have that choice. My parents were small business owners, so we didn't have traditional employer-sponsored coverage. In the first year of the business, my dad got very sick. He wasn't expected to live past 40. This is a happy story — he's now in his 70s. The doctors and nurses at Scripps in San Diego fought for him, and Blue Shield of California stood by him through a 35+ year relationship.

If he had been on an employer plan that changed at renewal, he might have had to switch systems, restart treatment, and lose critical continuity of care. He likely wouldn’t be here today without the stability that choice provided.

Just as important, our family didn’t go bankrupt from medical debt. By owning their decisions, my parents leaned in to learn and use the financial tools available to protect us. While premiums were the largest household expense, that investment gave them the ability to plan for stability.

Consumer-Focused Healthcare

In most industries, companies fight every day for your loyalty. Airlines offer rewards, credit cards give perks, even internet providers scramble to keep you from switching. Why? Because your choice matters.

Imagine if healthcare worked the same way: insurers competing to earn your trust, hospitals striving to keep you loyal, and doctors investing in long-term relationships. Every part of the system aligned around the idea that winning your business isn’t guaranteed — it has to be earned.

Today, healthcare doesn’t work that way. The dollars don’t come directly from you — they flow through insurers, funded largely by employers and government. That makes HR executives and policymakers the true customers, not individuals. When winning a corporate benefits contract or lobbying for favorable policy is more lucrative than serving patients, incentives get warped. Sometimes it's more effective to take an executive on a golf trip than to deliver better care in the waiting room.

Venteur is working to change this. By giving employees control over the dollars their employers already spend, the decision-maker shifts back to the individual. When people hold the power, the system has to compete for their loyalty. Insurers, hospitals, and doctors are pushed to deliver consumer value. The result is a healthcare industry that fights to serve people better: driving innovation, improving efficiency and efficacy, and creating a system where your loyalty is earned, not assumed.

This shift also unlocks innovation. Today, countless founders are building breakthrough solutions, but they stall because they must persuade an employer or insurer first. For example, a therapy app for carpal tunnel can be life-changing for an individual, but it rarely makes an employer’s priority list. When individuals control the dollars, healthcare companies must listen directly to them. That creates a system that rewards solutions people actually want and need.

That’s how we move beyond today’s healthcare crisis. When individuals are the true customer, every part of the system fights for their business. Competition drives innovation, rewards what works, and builds a system that is more efficient, more effective, and more human. Healthcare stops being something done to you — it becomes something that truly serves you.

Making Choice a Good Thing

Choice alone isn’t enough. Too much choice can backfire — overwhelming people or leaving them vulnerable to clever marketing that highlights the obvious while hiding the real trade-offs. Many plans emphasize coverage for common cases, like access to a primary care doctor or generic drug coverage. But the real financial value often lies in protection against big-ticket risks — hospitalizations, surgeries, chronic conditions. Without guidance, people may choose plans that look appealing on the surface but leave them exposed when they need care most.

That’s why technology is essential. It democratizes expertise, helping every person make the best decision for their unique situation. Venteur’s first product started here: using machine learning to provide decision support. By analyzing the full spectrum of medical expenditure data, we uncovered the true value of different coverage options — translating complexity into clarity so individuals could choose with confidence.

This has always been my personal passion — building technology that empowers people with the collective wisdom to elevates the way we live.

And with the rapid advances in AI, I’m more excited than ever. We can personalize at scale, expand access to expertise, and give people tools to maximize both health and financial outcomes. When choice is paired with intelligence, it’s not just freedom — it’s empowerment.

The Road Ahead

Our vision is clear: a consumer-focused healthcare system where individuals hold the power and the system competes every day to serve them. But getting there is a journey. The healthcare landscape is still dominated by employers, insurers, and policymakers who have long set the terms. Shifting that balance takes time — and it takes building, step by step.

That’s what we’re doing at Venteur. We’re creating the building blocks for this future, starting with tools that let individuals own their coverage, supported by technology that makes complex choices clear. Each product update we launch, each employer we partner with, move us closer to a system where people come first.

And like any startup, it’s not a solo mission. It’s a team effort. Whether you’re inspired to join us, collaborate, or simply share this passion for reshaping American healthcare, the invitation is open. The road ahead is long — but it’s worth it. Together, we can build a system that finally works for people.

Common Questions

Why Now?

A unique set of tailwinds makes this the moment:

• Policy: ICHRA is a relatively new policy that enjoys rare bipartisan support — Democrats see it as strengthening the Affordable Care Act (ACA), while Republicans view it as a free-market solution that fosters choice and competition.
• Costs: Rising healthcare costs are straining employers, many of whom are actively seeking alternatives to provide better benefits.
• Technology: Advances in data and AI now make it possible to take the complexity of individual healthcare decisions and translate it into clarity at scale.

Why haven't big players like Amazon "fixed healthcare" already?

Most large-scale initiatives have tackled the supply side — building clinics, partnerships, or new care models. But the real issue is demand: the true customers in today’s system are employers and policymakers, not individuals.

Until people themselves control the dollars, supply-side fixes can only go so far. ICHRA flips that equation by unlocking demand. Once individuals are the buyers, healthcare companies must compete directly to serve them — fueling real supply-side innovation.

Doesn't Group Insurance have more Buying Power than individuals?

It feels counterintuitive, but under the ACA, individuals often benefit from structural cost advantages. Coverage is underwritten at the state level through risk adjustments, meaning risk is pooled across a much larger population than any single employer could achieve. Few companies have the buying power of an entire state.

This structure exists because the ACA prohibits insurers from denying coverage for preexisting conditions. That creates incentives for insurers to be rewarded for service, not for selectively targeting only the healthiest customers.

What about networks — aren't exchange products bad?

A common critique is: “Where’s my PPO?” Employers often promote broad, national networks to simplify administration for a distributed workforce. But healthcare is inherently local. What most people want is confidence they can keep seeing their doctor and hospital.

Individual coverage is designed at the state level for the communities it serves. That makes products more local and relevant — instead of one-size-fits-no-one plans built for national scale.

What about Medicare for All?

I believe in a strong catastrophic layer to protect everyone from unaffordable risks. But even within Medicare today, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution — people choose between Medicare Advantage, supplemental coverage, and other options.

Structurally, employers have long provided healthcare benefits as a hiring differentiator — dating back to WWII wage freezes and even earlier, when railroads offered coverage to reassure workers about on-the-job injuries. That dynamic suggests employers will continue to play a role. Even if Medicare for All were enacted, many employers would likely still want to provide access to or pay for supplemental coverage as part of their compensation strategy. Individuals would still need tools and guidance to make the best choices.

Isn't insurance just one part of the problem?

Yes. Insurance is only the starting point. It’s the bundle through which $1.6 trillion in employer-sponsored healthcare spending flows — and those dollars can be used more efficiently.

Insurance is designed to manage the unpredictable. But roughly 80% of U.S. healthcare spending goes toward chronic care, which is predictable and recurring. Yet it’s still treated as “risk” underwritten by insurers. Shouldn’t that look more like a subscription model, where patients have ongoing, efficient relationships with their providers?

This is one of the many reasons I’m optimistic about ICHRA. Funds can be used not just for premiums, but also for qualified medical expenses. That flexibility creates room to innovate — experimenting with new ways to pay for care and support models that better serve people living with chronic conditions.