In what may be touted as one of the biggest breakthroughs witnessed across the healthcare industry, three well-known U.S. firms have announced their collaboration to establish a healthcare unit for their workforce. The decision may have come along the heels of the revelation that the nation’s healthcare system is indeed deteriorating, aided by multiple organization lapses, and not to mention, the rising medical treatment costs.
While numerous corporate behemoths such as Caterpillar and Walmart have tried hard to resolve the healthcare issues impacting their employees, frustration ran high, subject to the fact that the dispute over the healthcare cost reduction failed to reach any consensus in the U.S. Congress.
Records state that nearly 151 million U.S. employees receive medical insurance from their employers. Post the declaration of these industry behemoths to establish a prospective healthcare unit, it was observed that the share prices of major health insurance firms declined considerably. UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Anthem Inc. for instance, witnessed a major fall in their stock price, enabling analysts to forecast that Amazon’s penetration in the healthcare space is likely to negatively impact the growth prospects of distributors as well as key drug manufacturing firms.
The key officials of the three giant firms have stated that their healthcare initiative would be a non-profit organization, solely aimed at employee care and free from any constraints or incentives. However, the term ‘nonprofit organization’ has not yet been precisely elucidated by the companies. Amazon’s founder has declared that the main objective of the firm was to reduce the country’s healthcare expenses and bringing about an improvement in the lives of its employees.
The entry of Amazon & its partners in the U.S medical space may create a huge upheaval in the country’s healthcare industry dynamics, state medical experts. So far though, it is still ambiguous if this move would bring forth any change in the nation’s crippling healthcare infrastructure.