Amazon is linking up with the world’s most prominent investor and the country’s biggest bank to tackle health care.
The tech giant, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase jointly announced on Tuesday that they’re forming an independent company “free from profit-making incentives and constraints,” in an effort to provide American workers with better health insurance.
“The health care system is complex, and we enter into this challenge open-eyed about the degree of difficulty,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in a statement. “Hard as it might be, reducing health care’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.”
Details were sparse for the unnamed partnership, but the companies will leverage “technology solutions” to drive down costs, according to the joint statement.
“The ballooning costs of health care 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,” added Buffett. “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.”
The cost of the new operation wasn’t disclosed, and there was no mention of when it would roll out to workers beyond those tied to the three companies.
“Our people want transparency, knowledge and control when it comes to managing their health care,” said JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. “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.”