Why didn't Haven work?
The Amazon, J.P. Morgan, Berkshire Hathaway health initiative was supposed to change health care as we know it
After three years, Haven is disbanding.
I have distinct memories of the employer health initiative’s launch. It seemed so promising that three industry giants - Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan - were coming together with a mission to fix health care. Remember how Warren Buffett described the ballooning costs as the “hungry tapeworm” on the economy? It seemed like someone was finally going to do something to fix the most gaping problems.
Of course, there were skeptics from the start who pointed out that these employer health joint ventures almost never work.
And those folks have already been proven right.
As CNBC reported on Monday, Haven started informing employees that it would terminate operations by the end of February. The news comes about six months after Haven’s CEO, Dr. Atul Gawande, stepped down from day-to-day management.