Rocket Bomber - article - snark - Amazon Healthcare

Here’s a thing:

I want Amazon to run healthcare instead of selling books: customer focused, zero profits, ruthlessly driving down costs, single provider

— M Blind (@m__blind) October 10, 2014

“I want Amazon to run healthcare instead of selling books: customer focused, zero profits, ruthlessly driving down costs, single provider”

Amazon is disrupting an entire industry (at least one — but they started with books) and by-and-large everyone agrees that even if some suppliers are hurt, Amazon’s efforts have resulted in something amazing: readers love it, a whole new class of authors love it, books are bought-sold-read-enjoyed-and-discussed in unprecedented volume and the relentless pursuit of customer satisfaction while ignoring profits (actually: reinvesting all profits in better customer outcomes) has vaulted an out-of-the-garage startup into a $122 Billion behemoth that controls either/both 41% or 67% of the market (print- and e-) in 20 short years.

Amazon, like Wal-mart, also aggressively negotiates with suppliers (publishers, in the case of Amazon) to squeeze out anything but survival margins and actively innovates to open new markets and find new ways to satisfy their customers.

I personally feel Amazon is *at least* 49% evil even if they aren’t entirely evil but I’m in the minority on that. But now I’m asking:

If Amazon is so very, very good for customers, a business to be admired and emulated, and a model for how disruption of established industries can only be good for customers …

… then where is the Amazon for health care?

Why is there no push for a single-source, nationwide health care provider that would muscle both the insurers and the pharmaceutical companies to stop sucking people dry in the name of profits, and provide comprehensive health care that focuses on customers and outcomes, not the status quo and “you can keep your plan”?

Your plan sucks. My plan sucks. The whole health care mess is ripe, overripe, for disruption on the scale that Amazon has foisted upon an unsuspecting book industry.

The famous quote is “Your margin is my opportunity“. Other than higher education (and college loans are another rant) there is no other industry with fatter margins than healthcare. Amazon’s predatory tactics — excuse me, ‘innovations’ — are given a huge thumbs-up by the Dept. of Justice [“nope nope no threat of monopoly here”] so let’s let Amazon loose on an industry that actually needs a shakeup.

Disclaimer: I personally believe in government supplied, single-payer healthcare – “medicare for everyone”. Which you probably already guessed. That said, I’m also 100% for an ‘Amazon’ Healthcare system where a private company borrows billions — and gets a free pass from Wall Street for at least five years — to provide customer-driven health outcomes at lowest cost, with delivery anywhere, and focused not on what the suppliers have predetermined the market wants but instead is open to actual demand as determined by what customers are asking for.

I invite comments: if Amazon is such a great business model, why in the hell don’t we have Amazon healthcare yet?