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from the what's-the-affiliate-program-going-to-look-like-for-this? dept.
Amazon to buy One Medical, which runs 180+ medical offices throughout the US:
When Amazon launched Amazon Care to its employees in 2019, the goal was to test the product before rolling it out nationwide. After that rollout happened earlier this year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told Insider that the expansion would "fundamentally" change the health care game by dramatically enhancing the medical-care process. He predicted that patients in the future would be so used to telehealth and other new conveniences that they'll think that things like long wait times and delays between in-person visits commonly experienced today are actually "insane."
Now, The Wall Street Journal reports, Amazon has gone one step closer to that future by agreeing to a $3.9 billion deal to purchase One Medical, a company that operates a network of health clinics. With this move, Amazon will expand the number of patients it serves by gaining access to "a practice that operates more than 180 medical offices in 25 US markets and works with more than 8,000 companies to provide health benefits to employees, including with in-person and virtual care."
Echoing Jassy's enthusiasm, Neil Lindsay, Amazon Health Services' senior vice president, told WSJ that the company thinks "health care is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention." Purchasing One Medical is a way for Amazon to break further into the $4 trillion health care industry at a time when Amazon's revenue is down and costs are up.
[...] After the deal is done, One Medical chief executive Amir Dan Rubin "will remain CEO." In a news release to One Medical investors, Rubin expressed a lot of enthusiasm for the deal.
"The opportunity to transform health care and improve outcomes by combining One Medical's human-centered and technology-powered model and exceptional team with Amazon's customer obsession, history of invention, and willingness to invest in the long-term is so exciting," Rubin says. "There is an immense opportunity to make the health care experience more accessible, affordable, and even enjoyable for patients, providers, and payers."
[...] It has not been a total success story, though. Almost half a billion of Amazon's investment in One Medical is paying off the company's debt.
One Medical also recently came under fire in 2021 during a Congressional investigation into how it administered COVID-19 vaccines when they first became available in December 2020.
[...] Rubin was leading the company at the time. He has been CEO of One Medical since 2017 and has previously held executive roles for decades at health care companies, including a recent stint at UnitedHealth Group.
Congress' recent investigation into One Medical's untimely delivery of vaccines to vulnerable communities is not mentioned in the joint press release from Amazon and One Medical. Instead, Lindsay expresses full confidence in how One Medical handles delivery of patient care, saying Amazon will benefit from One Medical's "human-centered and technology-powered approach to health care," which Amazon believes "can and will help more people get better care, when and how they need it."
(Score: 1) by aafcac on Sunday July 31 2022, @11:22PM
I didn't vote for it, I voted for the politicians that were promising a public option and to address the issues. Voting for the party that was refusing to do anything at all wasn't likely to lead to a better situation. What we need more than anything else is to get all these folks that don't contribute to positive health outcomes out of the process. Other countries have proven that insurance companies aren't need for high quality health care.