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Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

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Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#71

Post by bpicolo »

samfriedman wrote: post #59
bpicolo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can tackle profit from other angles - sell medical supplies, etc.

I think it would be irresponsible at best for Amazon to tackle the medical supply/device market before they can get their counterfeiting problem under control.

Presumably they wouldn't allow literally-anybody comingled inventory for that. It's trivial for them to regulate requiring first party or trusted party sales for that.

They already sell it: https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Medical-Supplies/b?ie=UT...

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#72

Post by ihsw2 »

pmart123 wrote: post #61
bpicolo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I've been thinking about for a while - what would insurance companies (and even other companies in every vertical) look like with some incentive other than profit? Paying good salaries is one thing, but doing it for the sake of external shareholders is a different case. Newman's Own is one interesting (and successful) example I can think of that's an otherwise for-profit company acting effectively a…

Perhaps Vanguard is an example of a mass mutual company that owes part of its success through its formation due to its ability to pass cost savings back to its customers in the form of lower fund fees?

Vanguard took decades to gain any traction and it was managed well enough to ensure it didn't prematurely burn out, and not only that but Jack Bogle spent his entire life evangelizing low-cost in an environment where "cost is no object" was a common mantra.

Not only that but the healthcare industry has extraordinarily high financial and legal barriers to entry.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#73

Post by blantonl »

bpicolo wrote: post #49
jawns wrote: post #7

> The three companies said they plan to set up a new independent company "that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints." I wonder if they will be setting it up as a health insurance cooperative, an organizational structure in which the primary goal is to serve its members, rather than to generate value for external shareholders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_cooperative It's not at all…

This is something I've been thinking about for a while - what would insurance companies (and even other companies in every vertical) look like with some incentive other than profit? Paying good salaries is one thing, but doing it for the sake of external shareholders is a different case. Newman's Own is one interesting (and successful) example I can think of that's an otherwise for-profit company acting effectively a…

USAA would be a classic example

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#74

Post by refurb »

pliny wrote: post #48
kogepathic wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One word answer for the rising cost of healthcare in the US: administrators. [1] [1] https://fee.org/articles/the-chart-that-could-undo-the-us-he...

According to that chart there were 1-2 years in the 90s where the headcount of health care bureaucracy quadrupled, but the trendline for price did not change at all (maybe the smoothing is too aggressive? I couldn't find the source data). How do you conclude that the problem is administrators if an increase of 300% in # of admin doesn't produce a proportional change in the price?

That article is a terrible oversimplification of the issue. As you said, the two trend lines of number of administrators and cost aren't even correlated.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#75

Post by oblio »

avocadoLife wrote: post #35

I always think that it's only a matter of time before some company with vast capital (looking at you Apple) finds their own way to set up a city/country with their own ecosystem (healthcare, transport etc.), with less bureaucracy and more efficiently.

Company towns are not a new thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

Your idea was first attempted in the 1880's :)

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#76

Post by refurb »

ceejayoz wrote: post #42
kogepathic wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One word answer for the rising cost of healthcare in the US: administrators. [1] [1] https://fee.org/articles/the-chart-that-could-undo-the-us-he...

It'll require more than a one-word answer to explain why that Koch-affiliated ( https://www.charleskochinstitute.org/educational-programs/pa... ) libertarian think-tank didn't think to chart other rising healthcare costs, like the costs of prescription drugs. Administrator salaries don't seem to explain this: https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ASPE1.pn... Nor this: http://static3.businessinsider.com/…

The growth in drug expenditures has been reasonably close to inflation over the last decade.

One could argue drugs cost too much, but you can't argue they are a major reason for soaring healthcare costs.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#77

Post by noir-york »

dexterdog wrote: post #70
noir-york wrote: post #68

Three large employers, realising that for-profit healthcare is expensive and inefficient, create a non-profit that pools healthcare and is driven by its member's interests. This is terrible if it works. Imagine if other employers want to join it. And then even more employers... and what if the scheme becomes so large and covering so much of the population that it ... gasp... looks almost like a government-run non-pro…

Except that it's not a monopoly. There are still options that will compete with each other.

There will be economies of scale. The bigger the pool of employees the lower the costs, so yes there are options but they could get fewer if this takes off.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#79

Post by ceejayoz »

refurb wrote: post #76
ceejayoz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll require more than a one-word answer to explain why that Koch-affiliated ( https://www.charleskochinstitute.org/educational-programs/pa... ) libertarian think-tank didn't think to chart other rising healthcare costs, like the costs of prescription drugs. Administrator salaries don't seem to explain this: https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ASPE1.pn... Nor this: http://static3.businessinsider.com/…

The growth in drug expenditures has been reasonably close to inflation over the last decade. One could argue drugs cost too much, but you can't argue they are a major reason for soaring healthcare costs.

It has been well over inflation since the 1970s except 2010-2012, according to https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/recent-....

https://www.statista.com/statistics/184914/prescription-drug... says we've gone from $121B/year in 2000 to 360B/year in 2017.

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