The newest healthcare industry trio is Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase teaming up to create a healthcare company for their employees.

On Tuesday, January 30th, three large corporations, including Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase, announced that they would be teaming up to create an independent healthcare company for their employees located in the United States.

Amazon is an online shopping site that is said to be the world’s easiest way of shopping these days. Berkshire Hathaway is an international conglomerate company owned by Warren E. Buffett. JP Morgan Chase is the largest banking institution in the United States. These companies have teamed up to make a powerful trio that is Stepping Up when it comes to the healthcare of their employees. At this moment in time, the extent at which this new company will help with the current healthcare problem is unclear; however, we do know that their efforts will be aiding in their goal of providing a less expensive healthcare plan for their employees.

The companies released a statement in which they said that the “initial focus of the new company will be on technology solutions that will provide U.S. employees and their families with simplified, high-quality and transparent healthcare at a reasonable cost." Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase have nearly one million employees in total, and with an announcement this big, they could be pushing other companies throughout the country to step up when it comes to the healthcare plans of their own employees.

This announcement has been the talk of the country and it has sent shock waves throughout the healthcare industry and the economy. Since their announcement, the industry stocks have plummeted, despite the fact that there have only been a few details released concerning this new company in the making.

Warren Buffett has used the term “tapeworm" when describing the country’s rising healthcare costs, stating that the “medical costs are the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness." Currently in the US, according to The Huffington Post, about 30 million people are uninsured, and the majority of us “bear increasingly thin benefits with unaffordable premiums, deductibles, and copays." The problem with the American healthcare system is that it is built for profit, not for care. With the quality of healthcare declining, my hope is that these three major American companies will be able to help the country move towards a movement of affordable, high-quality health insurance for everyone.