Will Amazon Eat the Market?

By PAUL KECKLEY Last Tuesday, a trio of corporate heavy weights announced they were joining forces to fix the U.S. healthcare system. The CEOs of the three—Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway, and Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, vowed to create “an independent company that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints..to provide simplified, high-quality and transparent healthcare at a reasonable cost.” Details about the proposed venture are limited but it nonetheless sent shock waves across the industry. Stocks for industry mainstays like United Health, CVS, Express Scripts, Mylan and others plummeted. And, on the heals of mega-deals like CVS’ $69 billion acquisition of Aetna two months ago, speculators theorized it might be Armageddon for healthcare as we have known it in the U.S. First, what we know for sure: The new venture will focus on the collective buying power as employers of healthcare for the 1.15 million employees in their organizations. Their approach features five strategies widely. widely used by large self-insured employers to contain their employee health costs. This one is expected to leverage technology in a unique way: Primary care gatekeepers: Large employers vest considerable responsibility in primary care services that appropriate preventive health, manage chronic populations and control referrals to specialists and hospitals. Promotion of healthiness and wellbeing, the integration of physical and behavioral heal...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs