When Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan announced in 2018 a joint venture aimed at cutting the cost of employee healthcare, the news wiped off tens of billions of dollars from the market values of leading healthcare companies on the day.
Fast forward four and a half years. Amazon on Thursday said it would buy primary care provider One Medical for $3.9bn, including debt. The all-cash deal would add a high-end chain of bricks and mortar doctors’ offices to the retail giant’s portfolio of healthcare services.
Yet healthcare stocks have largely shrugged off the news. The absence of a market spasm this time around is telling. For all the talk about Big Tech’s impact on America’s dysfunctional, inefficient and archaic healthcare system, the $4tn-plus a year industry has proved hard to disrupt.