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Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Team Up to Disrupt Health Care
Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase announced on Tuesday that they would form an independent health care company to serve their employees in the United States. The three companies provided few details about the new entity, other than saying it would initially focus on technology to provide simplified, high-quality health care for their employees and their families, and at a reasonable cost. They said the initiative, which is in the early planning stages, would be a long-term effort "free from profit-making incentives and constraints."
The partnership brings together three of the country's most influential companies to try to improve a system that other companies have tried and failed to change: Amazon, the largest online retailer in the world; Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company led by the billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett; and JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States by assets.
Various health insurance and pharmacy companies were hit by the news:
The move sent shares of health-care stocks falling in early trading. Express Scripts Holding Co. and CVS Health Corp., which manage pharmacy benefits, slumped 6.7 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively. Health insurers Cigna Corp. and Anthem Inc. also dropped. The health-care industry has been nervously eyeing the prospect of competition from Amazon for months. While the new company created by Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan would be for their U.S. staff only, this is the first big move by Amazon into the industry. The new collaboration could pressure profits for middlemen in the U.S. health-care supply chain.
Related: $54 Billion Anthem-Cigna Health Insurer Merger Rejected by U.S. Judge
CVS Attempting $66 Billion Acquistion of Health Insurer Aetna
(Score: 5, Informative) by NewNic on Tuesday January 30 2018, @08:01PM (2 children)
Kaiser Permanente started out as a health care organization for workers at the Kaiser Shipyards and is sort-of non-profit.
Frm Wikipedia:
Kaiser Foundation Health Plans (KFHP) work with employers, employees, and individual members to offer prepaid health plans and insurance. The health plans are not-for-profit and provide infrastructure for and invest in Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and provide a tax-exempt shelter for the for-profit medical groups.
Permanente Medical Groups are physician-owned organizations, which provide and arrange for medical care for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan members in each respective region. The medical groups are for-profit partnerships or professional corporations and receive nearly all of their funding from Kaiser Foundation Health Plans. The first medical group, The Permanente Medical Group, formed in 1948 in Northern California. Kaiser doctors become Permanente stockholders after three years at the company.[7]
In addition, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals operates medical centers in California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, and outpatient facilities in the remaining Kaiser Permanente regions. The hospital foundations are not-for-profit and rely on the Kaiser Foundation Health Plans for funding. They also provide infrastructure and facilities that benefit the for-profit medical groups.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday January 30 2018, @10:27PM (1 child)
President Nixon -- very smart guy, one of our greatest presidents -- looked at what they were doing at Kaiser. They call it an HMO. They put the insurance, the doctors, the pharmacy all under one roof. And the less doctoring, the less drugs they prescribe, the more money they make from the insurance. Tremendous money machine, very smart! They were doing a terrific job, making a lot of money. Very efficient. And he said, "let's have more healthcare like that." He got together with Senator Ted Kennedy -- who was a Dem -- and they made a great law. So we'd have more of those terrific HMOs. It was doing great for many years. Until Obama came along and CHANGED it. And created the DISASTER we have today.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @05:00AM
Well, sort of.
Nixon did have a deep personal commitment to universal coverage.
(Nixon's plan was via the for-profit industry.)
(Teddy thought that Nixon's plan was flawed, but made concessions.)
...and when Killery was put in charge of coming up with a healthcare plan in 1992, she completely muffed single-payer and we got yet another profit-driven industry-based system.
...and O'Bummer's thing was just more of the same.
...and Trump has been trying to kill that--while not proposing anything to replace it.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]