Some corporations are so big, so intertwined with the economy and our daily lives and current events and politics, that it can be difficult to grasp the true scope of their importance.

CVS Health is one such company. With some 300,000 employees, more than 9,000 stores, and upward of 40,000 physicians, pharmacists and nurses on staff, CVS wields outsize influence in the American health care system. And with its 2018 merger with Aetna, the health insurance giant, the company now insures more than 20 million people, too.

Last year, Karen S. Lynch took over as chief executive, replacing the longtime C.E.O. Larry Merlo. For Ms. Lynch, who came up through Aetna and worked at other insurers before that, assuming the new job meant confronting a host of immediate challenges.

CVS stores remained open throughout the pandemic, though its army of office workers has been working from home for nearly two years. The pharmacies became vaccine distribution centers and testing sites. A jury last year found that CVS and other drugstore chains contributed to the opioid epidemic. And Ms. Lynch, who prefers to steer clear of politics, said she was at once holding firm in the company’s commitment not to donate to Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results, while also continuing to lobby against more public options for health care

Ms. Lynch, who rides her Peloton to relieve stress and champions physical and mental health, says she is unfazed by the myriad complexities, and often comes back to the words of her aunt, who raised her.

“The reason I’m as decisive as I am is that when I was growing up, my aunt told me that you were going to have to make decisions in your life, and you’re going to have to live with those decisions right, wrong or indifferent,” she said. “When you make decisions as often as I do, you’re going to make a bad call. You just have to readjust.”

This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.

You took over as C.E.O. in the middle of the pandemic. What are some of the challenges you’re facing as the leader of this big diversified company at this moment?

I never thought I would take over as C.E.O. in the middle of a pandemic. But throughout my entire career I have been faced with a number of different kinds of challenges and changes and big strategic issues, and this is different, but it’s no different.

I stepped back and said, “What is our true purpose of the company?” What I want to do is make sure that people have access to high-quality, affordable health care, and that we as a company can help people navigate the health care system. Because we’re so central in people’s lives, we have the ability to be even more central in people’s lives. That’s the mark I really want to make, is to be part of someone’s everyday life where if they’re healthy, they’re engaging with us to stay healthy. If they have health issues, they’re engaging with us so that we can help manage and navigate that.

Can you give me give me some examples?

Well, let’s just start with a pandemic, right? So you come to CVS for your test and we started that, you know, way back when you come to CVS for your vaccines. We have done virtual primary care as a change in how people think. We’ve added behavioral health specialists to our stores, which is really different. We’re going to move into the expansion of health care services. I don’t want people to think about CVS Health as just that drugstore. I want them to think about it being a health care company.

How big of a problem is shoplifting for your stores right now?

There are certain parts of the country that are worse than others, but it’s not having a material impact on our financial results. It is a safety issue, however, for our employees. So one of the things that we’ve done is we’ve made more investments in security.

How is the labor shortage affecting the company? Are you having a hard time hiring people?

It is a big challenge for us. We have increased our wages. We paid pharmacy bonuses in the past year. We’ve done big hiring days. But it is a constant balance and a constant battle.

You said you were going to raise your minimum wage to $15 an hour by this summer. Is that right?

We do that in phases. So we’ve been rolling it out over time, and I don’t know that it’s enough. We obviously moderate wages in different parts of the country and I’m going to continue to evaluate it.

What do you see as the most effective ways that we could reduce health care costs for everyday Americans? And what’s your company’s role in doing that?

There’s a couple of things. One is there’s the site of care. Our role is offering an alternative site of care, either in our retail locations, or in the home with virtual connections. We’re entering into the primary care space because we believe that primary care has real significant influence over the cost of health care.

And I’m pretty passionate about the fact that the head is attached to the body, and most people experience behavioral health issues when they are experiencing physical health issues. We only deal with the physical health. We don’t deal with the behavioral health part, and I think there’s more we can do.