SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. top internet retailer Amazon announced Tuesday that it is partnering with the world's two major financial companies to dive into U.S. health care.
Amazon is joining billionaire Warren Buffet's massive conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway and banking giant JPMorgan Chase to establish an independent health care company for their employees in the United States.
The new company aims to reduce costs and provide simplified health care to more than one million workers employed by the three top players in the business industry.
"The three companies, which bring their scale and complementary expertise to this long-term effort, will pursue this objective through an independent company that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints," Berkshire Hathaway said in a statement.
It said the new joint venture is still at its early planning stage, and no decision has been made with regard to its long-term management team, headquarters location and key operational details.
But the new company, with the backing of the three billionaire CEOs, Jef Bezos of Amazon, Buffet and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, will have a significant potential to shake up the current complex and costly U.S. health care system.
"The ballooning costs of healthcare act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy," Buffett said in a statement.
"Our group does not come to this problem with answers. But we also do not accept it as inevitable," he said.
Amazon CEO Bezos echoed Buffet's statement, saying their effort is worthwhile when they come to reduce "healthcare's burden on the economy while improving outcomes for employees and their families."
