Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan Health Care Venture To Close

By Susan Rupe

Three years ago, three of the nation’s biggest names in business – Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan – banded together with the goal of reinventing health care. Today, the company they created – Haven – announced it is shutting down next month.

In a statement on its website, Haven announced it is ending its independent operations at the end of February.

“In the past three years, Haven explored a wide range of healthcare solutions, as well as piloted new ways to make primary care easier to access, insurance benefits simpler to understand and easier to use, and prescription drugs more affordable,” the statement said. “Moving forward, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. will leverage these insights and continue to collaborate informally to design programs tailored to address the specific needs of their own employee populations.”

When leaders of Haven’s three parent companies joined together in 2018 to announce their plans to disrupt health care, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffet famously described the ballooning costs of health care as a "hungry tapeworm" on the economy.

The plan for Haven was to use the combined companies' resources to control costs and improve care for the member companies' employee populations, but the new venture struggled to find an identity. Haven also lost financial backing and had trouble getting commitments from Amazon, Business Insider reported.

Susan Rupe is managing editor for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @INNsusan.

Susan Rupe is editor in chief, magazine, for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at [email protected].