Amazon, JPMorgan, Berkshire Hathaway to create Healthcare Co

[redheadbaker]

Amazon, JPMorgan, Berkshire creating new health care company


Amazon, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and the New York bank JPMorgan Chase are teaming up to create health care company “free from profit-making incentives and constraints.”

Buffett, in a prepared statement Tuesday, called the skyrocketing costs of health care in the U.S. the “hungry tapeworm on the American economy.”

www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/amazon-jpmorgan-berkshire-creating-new-health-care-company/2018/01/30/2efd04cc-05b9-11e8-aa61-f3391373867e_story.html?tidr=a_breakingnews&hpid=hp_no-name_no-name%3Apage%2Fbreaking-news-bar

[Deleted]

I'm all about disrupting health insurance companies...but JPMorgan has been shitty since like, 1850, and Amazon already owns my soul, so I guess I'll just sit back and see how his goes.

[fumbalina]

I don't expect this to work at all. I don't have good feelings about any of those companies.

[cville]

I feel like every day Amazon is getting closer to Buy-N-Large in Wall-E and that is a deeply unsettling feeling.

[Velar Fricative]

I expect that it'll just be one shitty model replacing another.

[poundcake]

Amazon and Healthcare just don't seem to mix. I feel like you would have to buy a kidney and get it quick with Amazon Prime or something.

[aurora]

I'm not going to hold my breath on this one, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Warren Buffet has spoken extensively about problems with wealth disparity. (Has he been ruined yet? I can't always keep up.)

[goldengirlz]

It’s interesting that they’re focusing only on their own employees for now. I suspect it’s that their employees will be the guinea pigs and then they’ll start to scale (perhaps adding new companies once it gets off the ground.)

The other part is that you’ve got a large workforce of mostly healthy, relatively young people and you’re taking them out of the healthcare pool and making some tech-savvy parallel healthcare system. Is this like the healthcare equivalent of the tech shuttle buses?

[ribollita]

Jan 30, 2018 9:54:48 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

The other part is that you’ve got a large workforce of mostly healthy, relatively young people and you’re taking them out of the healthcare pool and making some tech-savvy parallel healthcare system. Is this like the healthcare equivalent of the tech shuttle buses?

I would assume they are already self-insured so not affecting the greater risk pool.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[isabel]

Jan 30, 2018 9:47:21 GMT -5 aurora said:

I'm not going to hold my breath on this one, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Warren Buffet has spoken extensively about problems with wealth disparity. (Has he been ruined yet? I can't always keep up.)

Yeah, I'm only slightly optimistic because Buffet is involved. He's still good, right?

[AndyCohen]

An insurance company that actually has no concerns about making profit would be interesting. I'm skeptical that this would actually be that.

[ribollita]

Jan 30, 2018 11:00:22 GMT -5 AndyCohen said:

An insurance company that actually has no concerns about making profit would be interesting. I'm skeptical that this would actually be that.

The article isn’t clear but I’m thinking this will be more about care delivery than insurance.

There are a lot of NFP health insurance companies- some states require them. They can still be problematic.

[pitta12]

Free from profit-making, my ass.

My company has experts looking at this from the perspective of employer-sponsored plans and will have some talking points out soon. I'll share what their view is when I see it. It sounds to me like they are going to band together to create a value-based accountable-care type of model for their employees, maybe, which we have some large local employers doing (with our help). If that's the case, maybe some good will come from it if it is designed well. Amazon's involvement makes me highly skeptical about how they're going to find a way to suck some money out of the deal, though.

[gt7301b]

Jan 30, 2018 10:59:20 GMT -5 isabel said:

Jan 30, 2018 9:47:21 GMT -5 aurora said:

I'm not going to hold my breath on this one, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Warren Buffet has spoken extensively about problems with wealth disparity. (Has he been ruined yet? I can't always keep up.)

Yeah, I'm only slightly optimistic because Buffet is involved. He's still good, right?

This place ruin Buffet for me, isn't it? He is a white, male, octogenarian....... I guess it is bound to happen eventually. 

[seeyalater52]

Jan 30, 2018 10:57:25 GMT -5 ribollita said:

Jan 30, 2018 9:54:48 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

The other part is that you’ve got a large workforce of mostly healthy, relatively young people and you’re taking them out of the healthcare pool and making some tech-savvy parallel healthcare system. Is this like the healthcare equivalent of the tech shuttle buses?

I would assume they are already self-insured so not affecting the greater risk pool.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Yes to both of these. On the one hand, fine whatever, it's only affecting their people and their people aren't in the risk pool to be gin with so it's pretty neutral impact-wise.

On the other hand, virtually nothing they find out is going to be interesting in the least beyond employer sponsored plans because as goldengirlz said their employee workforce is a unicorn in the health insurance world. 

Also nonprofit insurers already exist. So I'm not really feeling like this is some aamaaaazzzzziiinnnggg new development that deserves all these accolades.

In many ways it could set the stage for further dividing white collar workers (esp in tech) from everyone else in terms of employee benefits, which is a really bad thing for stratification of wealth and health. 

[goldengirlz]

Jan 30, 2018 10:57:25 GMT -5 ribollita said:

Jan 30, 2018 9:54:48 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

The other part is that you’ve got a large workforce of mostly healthy, relatively young people and you’re taking them out of the healthcare pool and making some tech-savvy parallel healthcare system. Is this like the healthcare equivalent of the tech shuttle buses?

I would assume they are already self-insured so not affecting the greater risk pool.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I wasn’t really referring to actuarial risk but more the issue seeyalater52 raised. Details are slim, of course, but it’s almost like they’re creating their own concierge medical system where they can experiment with cool new digital health technologies. I agree it sounds kind of like an accountable-care organization, which means they want to disrupt the care delivery piece and not just the payment piece.

There are a number of startups trying to do this with traditional insurers (One Medical, Forward) but anyone can join if they pay a registration fee.

We’ve always had haves and have nots in healthcare but this seems like it’s a deeper bifurcation of the system.

[flex]

Big business taking on more big business gives me pause.

[msmerymac]

Not a surprise, since they recently hired a HIPAA compliance expert, right?

I wonder if this means Philly is more likely to get the new HQ because of its proximity to tons of insurance and pharma companies.

[amberlyrose]

Jan 30, 2018 12:42:21 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Not a surprise, since they recently hired a HIPAA compliance expert, right?

I wonder if this means Philly is more likely to get the new HQ because of its proximity to tons of insurance and pharma companies.

Doesn't Boston have a ton of pharma company HQs in the area too? I could see this as being a big push for the NE for Amazon. 

[katieinthecity]

I'm willing to give them a chance. I don't see how the healthcare/insurance industry can get WORSE.

[jssymom14]

So DH works for Berkshire Hathaway owned company and his insurance isn’t anything amazing (grandfathered Cigna plan). I am hoping that this will give us more options.

[sent]

Jan 30, 2018 11:00:22 GMT -5 AndyCohen said:

An insurance company that actually has no concerns about making profit would be interesting. I'm skeptical that this would actually be that.

Delta Dental is a non-profit. Not the same as medical but still. As someone on the other side sometimes paid by Delta for seeing their subscribers, everything I read about them is all about how Delta worries about the profits. Big billboards on major highways and pro-sports team stadium ads look like something a company with lots of money to spend does, even though they are classified as non-profits. 

I have no faith in the term non-profit but I also am curious what these 3 come up with because what's out there is so bad. 

[bugandbibs]

I'm interested in seeing where this goes. I'm guessing the goal here is to reduce their own employer health care costs. Having a not for profit system could save them money in the long run, right?

I'm all for giving traditional models a run for their money.