Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have announced a new partnership to address healthcare for their U.S. employees, designed to improve employee satisfaction and to lower costs.
The partnership, which combines the knowledge and expertise of the three companies, will focus on its objective via an independent company that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints, and will initially focus on technology products that offer U.S. employees, and their families with simple, high-quality and transparent healthcare, at a reasonable cost.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, commented; “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.”
Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, added; “The healthcare system is complex, and we enter into this challenge open-eyed about the degree of difficulty. Hard as it might be, reducing healthcare’s burden on the economy while improving outcomes for employees and their families would be worth the effort. Success is going to require talented experts, a beginner’s mind, and a long-term orientation.”
The new partnership remains in its early days, and as such details remain scarce. However, it’s possible that Berkshire Hathaway’s reinsurance capacity could be used to underpin these new solutions, while Amazon would be an ideal distributor in the future. Only time will tell exactly what the new partnership looks like in the future and what role each of the three companies will play.
Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, said; “Our people want transparency, knowledge and control when it comes to managing their healthcare. 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.”
While in its early stages, the initial establishment of the independent company was jointly spearheaded by Todd Combs, an investment officer of Berkshire Hathaway; Marvelle Sullivan Berchtold, a Managing Director of JPMorgan Chase; and Beth Galetti, a Senior Vice President (SVP) at Amazon.
