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NEW YORK — Three of the largest U.S. companies — Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase & Co. — have joined together to take employee health care into their own hands.
Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase said Tuesday that they plan to form an independent health care company to provide their employees accessible, affordable and quality care. Characterized as a long-term effort, the corporate giants said they initially aim to focus on technology solutions that offer workers and their families basic, high-quality and transparent health care “at a reasonable cost” but have an overarching goal of improving employee satisfaction and reducing costs.
“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,” Berkshire Hathaway chairman and chief executive officer Warren Buffett said in a statement. “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.”
So far, the employee health care partnership is only in the early planning stages. Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase said the formation of the company is jointly led by Todd Combs, an investment officer at Berkshire Hathaway; Marvelle Sullivan Berchtold, a managing director at JPMorgan Chase; and Beth Galetti, a senior vice president at Amazon. The companies added that the longer-term management team, headquarters and key operational details will be communicated at a later time.
Though the three companies admit they don’t come to the venture with ready-made solutions for the health care dilemma, they said they can leverage their scale, collective experience and resources, and complementary expertise to bring a fresh approach to the problem. That includes thinking out of the box, according to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
“The health care system is complex, and we enter into this challenge open-eyed about the degree of difficulty,” Bezos noted. “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.”
Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, pointed out that a linchpin of solutions forthcoming from the partnership will be to empower their employees to take charge of their own health care.
“Our people want transparency, knowledge and control when it comes to managing their health care,” Dimon stated. “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.”
