"What happens when a company defined by utterly ruthless efficiency
sets its sights on the flabbiest part of the U.S. economy? We shall see,
now that Amazon has announced that it–along with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and the banking behemoth JPMorgan Chase–will be entering the dominion of health care.
“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,” said
JPMorgan chairman Jamie Dimon on Jan. 30, treading lightly
(“potentially”) on the enormous implications (“all Americans”) that were
apparent. As it takes shape, the as-yet-unnamed joint enterprise will
nominally serve, without seeking profit, only the 1.2 million people who
work for the three companies.
But the clear and worthy goal is to confront the Gorgon that has stymied politicians for decades."
"The U.S. health care system is the antithesis of Silicon Valley. Grossly
inefficient and user-unfriendly, it may be the least transparent
enterprise outside the Kremlin–and just as awash in money. The $3.3
trillion that Americans spent on health care in 2016 was close to
Germany’s entire GDP that year. It accounted for an astounding 18% of
the U.S. gross domestic product–twice the share other developed
countries typically spend on health–and produced a return on investment
that would get any CEO fired. Life expectancy in the U.S. is actually
going down." - What Happens When Amazon Takes on Health Care, 02/01/2018, time.com
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://time.com/5128377/amazon-and-friends-takes-on-a-new-industry-health-care/
“During the Democratic presidential debate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mentioned that as president she would build on President Obama's signature health care plan. The Affordable Care Act "is one of the greatest accomplishments of President Obama, of the Democratic Party, and of our country," she added. I beg to differ.
First, the ACA didn't reform the health care system. It just threw trillions of dollars at an already dysfunctional system. In the next 10 years alone, ACA spending will be at least $1.5 trillion.
To our already burdensome tax system, it also adds many new taxes, including an individual mandate excise tax, an employer mandate tax, a 3.8 percent surtax on investment income, an excise tax on comprehensive health insurance plans, a hike in Medicare payroll tax, a Medicine cabinet tax and many more.
The law's subsidies — available to lower-income people to make the ACA plans more appealing — are also a huge drag on the economy, since they drop sharply as income increases. As such, it's not surprising that the Congressional Budget Office projects the ACA will reduce work by an amount equal to two million full-time jobs and lower the nation's economic output by half of 1 percent. However, University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan thinks the negative effects of the ACA will be twice as large as the CBO projects.
The ACA's many mandates increased individual market premiums by close to 50 percent between 2013 and 2014. And those mandates are burdensome, even for employer-based plans. For instance, a new study by Harvard and Stanford Universities finds that the popular dependent care mandate will have very unpopular consequences: It lowers wages for workers at firms with employer-based coverage by $1,200 every year. And here's a prediction: Politicians will be quick to blame the reduction on greedy employers, and rather than remove the mandate, they'll try to fix the problems with more mandates.” - The Affordable Care Act -- Mission Accomplished?, Creators Syndicate. Veronique de Rugy, 01/22/2016
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://mercatus.org/expert_commentary/affordable-care-act-mission-accomplished?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=SBI
