Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Health Care Innovation Would Be Amazon's 'Toughest Fixer Upper To Date'
The Wall Street Journal: Mr. Bezos, Welcome To The Health-Care Jungle
Amazon announced Tuesday that it will join with J.P. Morgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway to wade into the jungle of U.S. health care, and the news slashed billions in stock-market value from health-care companies in mere hours. American health care could benefit from creative destruction, though this would be Amazon’s toughest fixer upper to date. “The ballooning costs of healthcare act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy,” said Berkshire chief Warren Buffett in Tuesday’s announcement. The companies will create an entity that “will provide U.S. employees and their families with simplified, high-quality and transparent healthcare at a reasonable cost.” One goal appears to be to spread ideas that work. (1/31)
Los Angeles Times: Reducing Healthcare Costs Doesn't Require Bezos/Buffett/Dimon Magic: Every Other Country Already Knows How
America does relatively well in cancer care, but worse than other developed countries in heart disease mortality. Our infant mortality rate is the highest among developed countries, life expectancy at birth the lowest. Because Messrs. Bezos, Buffett and Dimon didn't work a global perspective into their hand-wringing analysis, they failed to see the American crisis in healthcare costs for what it is: a political problem, not a "technological" problem. (Michael Hiltzik, 1/31)
Bloomberg: How Amazon & Co. Could Fix Health Care
Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan haven't said much about what their new joint venture will do to "provide U.S. employees and their families with simplified, high quality and transparent healthcare at a reasonable cost." It's not hard to imagine, however, how the three companies could set up a large, closed system that could serve as a blueprint for the only disruptor with the ability to fix the entrenched, inefficient U.S. health care system -- the U.S. government. (Leonid Bershidsky, 1/31)
Bloomberg: A Better Way To Disrupt Health Care
Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase say they're putting their heads together to make health care better and less expensive for their employees. Just possibly, it's a partnership that could disrupt the U.S. health-care system -- in a good way. The market value of insurance companies and pharmacy-benefit managers dropped on the announcement, a sign that investors think the alliance might inject new competition and press down on prices. For consumers, that's an encouraging development. Up to now, big private employers have helped to make the American health-care system inefficient. Perhaps they're about to start pushing the other way. (1/31)
