Amazon, JPMorgan and Warren Buffett launching independent healthcare company for their employees

[sunonmars]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5329705/Amazon-JPMorgan-Berkshire-creating-new-health-care-company.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailus

Amazon, JP Morgan and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway are launching an independent healthcare company for their US employees.

The business giants announced the plan on Tuesday in a joint statement where Buffett described their shared desire to tackle the 'hungry tapeworm' of current US healthcare models.

Few additional details have been released but Buffett said their solution aimed to make healthcare more affordable for their workers.

'The ballooning costs of (health care) act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy,' Buffett said in a prepared statement.

'Our group does not come to this problem with answers. But we also do not accept it as inevitable.

'Rather, we share the belief that putting our collective resources behind the country's best talent can, in time, check the rise in health costs while concurrently enhancing patient satisfaction and outcomes.'

The new company will be independent and 'free from profit-making incentives and constraints.'

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If they can succeed, i wish them well.

[BSdetect]

1. More serfdom for employees? Keep then retained?

[Me.]

2. BOOM

This can have wide-reaching effects

[FarCenter]

3. They most likely already self-insure about 1% of the US workforce

Between them, they have about a million employees. Companies this large generally are self insured. They hire a health insurance company only for adminstration of their health care plans, but the insurer bills through the actual costs of care.

On thing they could do is implement a joint company to do the healthcare administration, instead of using an insurer. This would also give them a lot of data on what the details of the costs are and on what the effectiveness of various treatments by various suppliers is. Together they have the insurance expertise (Berkshire), big data analytics (Amazon) and financial analysis expertise (JPM) to shine a very bright spotlight on the healthcare systems costs and effectiveness.