161–170 of 540 posts
When i think of disruption i think of uber. Rides where none could happen before. What will their disruption be? How about delinking insurance to healthcare. Let me buy healthcare the day i need it. And nothing the day after i dont. No more having healthy people pay for sick people: no more young pay for the old. Create something we cant imagine; like uber; like Facebook
What kind of rides were enabled by Uber, that couldn't be done by cab?
Saying this new venture is going to be free of profit-making is a bit like saying water is "sugar free." This is all about lowering their own cost of employing a massive workforce.
All individuals with chronic conditions and functional limitations - $909 billion
Individuals aged ≥ 65 y with chronic conditions and functional limitations - $543 billion
Individuals at the end of life - $205 billion.
I am not sure you can save any healthcare costs unless 1. People change their eating and lifestyle habits. 2. End of life care is about 13% of the entire cost. Not sure how it compares to other countries but I think it can be optimized. 3. Most of the costs are due to Medicare and Medicaid which due to the volume set the prices for the entire healthcare market. Due to a law passed by congress Medicare is prohibited from negotiating prices. The most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
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A venture-capitalist firm that's doing studies in Basic Income and its effects. So give them a little credit.
I don't think there's anything necessarily anti-capitalist about BI, especially if it could be shown that a given level of BI substituting certain social programs was more cost-effective. Increasing benefits while lowering taxes without raising the deficit or incurring debt would be a pretty easy sell to both sides of the aisle, I'd think.
It's not just the cost. It's the incredible inefficiency of the operations, and, the gerrymandering of coverage. Under the ACA, I had to choose between allowing my family to continue to see their lifetime care givers, or, paying in network rates, for the full year, because the insurance company I chose gave me incorrect information when they were trying to get my business (my wife is less kind in evaluating their mot…
Hearing the report on Bloomberg news earlier today. Isn't this just for the 900k employees and isn't it just focusing on wearable tech? It sounded more like fitbit with cloud services than insurance.
If there are healthcare providers involved giving direct healthcare, there will need to be systems and development around medical records. That could easily be sold as a product to hospitals and providers outside of the AMZN/JPM/BRK company down the road.
Taking a "beginner's mindset" to me sounds like they plan on writing their own stuff, except for interoperation like HL7, which is great because most of the stuff from EPIC/Allscripts/Cerner is drowning in technical debt.
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Not only has Berkshire never paid dividends, as another comment noted, Buffett decided three decades ago to give all of his wealth away to the benefit of less fortunate people. What's your next premise?
I was wrong, replace dividends with stock buybacks and buying up other companies, it's the same impact on the policy holder, who will still see no financial gain from holding the policy. Did you consider that some of those less fortunate people that he donates to might be less fortunate because they've been paying into an insurance system that for 40+ years years has provided them no return?
It's not just the cost. It's the incredible inefficiency of the operations, and, the gerrymandering of coverage. Under the ACA, I had to choose between allowing my family to continue to see their lifetime care givers, or, paying in network rates, for the full year, because the insurance company I chose gave me incorrect information when they were trying to get my business (my wife is less kind in evaluating their mot…
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I had the same unfortunate experience that in angers me to even think about it. - I leave my last employer on July 21, 2017 - My old employer rols me off system on last day of July 2017 - On June 2017, they switch HR providers from TriNET to Namely and now the payment processor is Discovery Benefits and the Dental/Vision are now in Guardian. (So it went from Aetna to Aetna/Guardian and two other companies). Since my…
"The whole reason we get insurance is to avoid those high prices." But only for unpredictable, irregular events. Anything else is uninsurable. If someone sells you "insurance" for wellness checkups[1], regular, scheduled screenings ... or tires on your car ... you can be absolutely assured that they are taking from you as much, or more, in premiums than the cost of those services. What you are looking for is socializ…
I work for a healthcare services company. The industry is ripe for disruption just in the way data is handled and managed. What I found interesting in the article is that the new firm would not be “profit seeking”. Interesting. I wonder if Amazon would do what they did for years and put any and all profits back into the new company. But then why partner with an investment bank?
Financial security in exchange for points?
Amazon already did the profitless thing for a decade+. It's betting on its ability to do it again in a bigger market, but a market with a ton of unknowns. Having some financial backing by an investment bank might be something of a safety net.
Maybe Amazon was never certain AWS would work out, but look where it is now. If you could get in as an investor on Amazon's next AWS, wouldn't you take the risk?
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It's a bit of an aside, but this whole issue, the bare knuckle fight about health care brings about an interesting deeper rooted issue that clearly and uniquely differentiates the two primary perspectives; one side always tends towards the heavy handed, imposing, authoritarian approach to force things they deem self-evident as desirable or have determined to be "good" and are thereby inherently inefficient and wastef…
Let's tear down on the government restrictions on the sell side of the market before we champion the glory of the market. Repeal EMTALA. No patents. No certificates of need. Make Medicare and Medicaid fully opt in for providers. Create a path for additional private organizations to certify medical schools. Anyone refusing to do all that stuff and face the political consequences for it just wants to pay less taxes.
It's the age old question, who is a better person to make decisions for yourself, you yourself, or some person somewhere that believes they know better what is best for you in your particular set of circumstances. Some call it communism, some marxism, some authoritarianism, some totalitarianism ... but ultimately they are simply differing degrees and characteristics of the same question ... who controls your life?