Posted on 01/30/2018 5:00:31 AM PST by COBOL2Java
WASHINGTON — Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase & Co. will create an independent health care company that is “free from profit-making incentives” that will aim to reduce healthcare costs for their U.S. workers.
The focus of the company will be technology solutions “that will provide U.S. employees and their families with simplified high-quality and transparent healthcare at a reasonable cost,” a news release says.
“The ballooning costs of healthcare act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy. 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,” said Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, in the news release.
Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon said the effort could potentially benefit all Americans.
“Our people want transparency, knowledge and control when it comes to managing their healthcare,” Dimon said. “The three of our companies have extraordinary resources, and our goal is to create solutions that benefit our U.S. employees, their families and, potentially, all Americans.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wtop.com ...
Or the FDA, CDC and DEA? How many of those FDA approved drugs that get Flagged or Black Box ever get removed from the Market. Many end up OTC.
Every Script OA drug is Black Boxed for GI/Heart diseases. I have a RUINED GI track and Ruined Bones from those Drugs and the Refulx it PPI that was needed to treat what the FDA approved drugs created. No cure, and a Per-Cancerous condition to monitor. Barrett’s Esopogus that is painful.
CDC got the Flu vaccine wrong again this year. 10% effective.
I agree. This is the beginning of competition in healthcare.
It will probably be optional, but offer a lower cost.
The current JPM health plan has a $2750 deductible, and costs about $400 a month for a family. JPM gives about $1000 in a free spending account to help meet the deductible. After the deductible is met, it’s 80/20 until the out-of-pocket max is reached.
So you could potentially be spending $4-5K of you own money on health care costs every year.
Now suppose they say OK, the new plan is the same price, but there are no deductibles. We’ve got great doctors and hospitals signed up, they’ll provide everything you need. Some people will try it.
The catch is that the whole facility is cash-based. It doesn't take insurance of any kind. Not Aetna. Not Cigna. Not Medicare or Medicaid. Patients or their employers pay whatever price is listed online.
To Villa, the model seemed refreshingly subversive. The Surgery Center would charge $19,000 for his whole-knee replacement, a discount of nearly 50% on what Villa expected to be charged at his local hospital. And that price would include everything from airfare to the organization's only facility, in Oklahoma City, to medications and physical therapy. If unforeseen complications arose during or after the procedure, the Surgery Center would cover those costs.
We used to have those. They were the religious charity hospitals. Then the government got into the health business...
I have been advocating not for profit business model as a workable alternative to what we have now. Blue cross and Blue shield used to be not for profit and they switched business models in the early 1990’s. The service went down hill and the prices started rising double digits each year.
“ALL” staff at these sponsoring companies pledged to place their families under this plan.”
Yes! And only under that plan.
I can vouch for that. I worked for DC BCBS (BCBSNCA) from '87 to '97. They were one of the last of the non-profits to go; they got swallowed up by for-profit Maryland BCBS and became CareFirst BCBS.
The free market will eventually help with healthcare solutions once the rules of the game stop being a moving target and real competition is introduced.
an initiative by three of the people who made out the best in the strip mining of the American economy
If you get Prime Healthcare from Amazon you get cured in 2 days or less. If not satisfied you can return the pills and either get a refund or other pills for what ails ya.
Your doctor’s name is Alexa.
It may very well be great, but the devil is in the details. FWIW, I’d be a lot more enthused if they didn’t have a mad-on for profit.
I hope it works out exceedingly well. Medicine costs way too much. The promotions to use even more medicine and medical care are shameless and shameful in their self-promotion.
Much of medicine is a high cost solution in search of a low cost problem. Follow the money.
I hope I never need it and can just die quietly in my sleep.
Why would they want profit in this case?
Low cost and no deductible health care is an open invitation to irresponsible and unrestrained consumption. It will not work.
Thank tricky Dick and his buddy George Kiaser for that.
Truthfully, I am hoping that somebody creates a “health care census” business. The idea is that mostly corporate employers have their employees get a thorough check up every 10 years, including things like:
A whole body X-Ray.
A whole body MRI.
Very detailed blood, urine and stool specimen analysis.
Full dental X-Ray panel.
DNA analysis.
EKG/EEG.
etc.
The first time, unless they spot something dramatic, will be the baseline for future reference.
Yes, and back in the day BCBS was predominately major medical only. You paid for all your doctor visits out of pocket in our plan back in the 50s and 60s. The cost of medical insurance and care hardly ever came up in our house. It was not a major expense. All the doctors in our town did well, had big fine houses on country club drive or in the country.
The hospital in town was owned and operated by a not-for-profit religious order. Things seemed to work out pretty well. Children were born, old people died, fractures were fixed and wounds were bound. Life went on and medicine and the latest new drug were not the focus of the day’s news.
There is far too much drama being made of what should be just normal life.
“free from profit-making incentives”
So with no incentive for the R&D for their health care solutions to have a decent return on investment (ROI), are we to assume that Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan Chase are going to just write off losses on their “solutions”?
Either the leaders of those three organizations have let their Liberal/Progressive political zeal make them economically naive when it comes to health care solutions, or they are willing to make their parent organizations eat all the losses in their new venture. If it is the latter, then how long will their stock holders keep holding their stocks?
I certainly hope that Trump has a crew working on all the back taxes that Buffett owes the USA.
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