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We asked Jamie Dimon why JPMorgan is forming a new healthcare company with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway — here's what he said (JPM, AMZN)

Jamie Dimon explains why JPMorgan, Amazon, and Berkshire Hathaway are banding together to form a nonprofit venture to lower healthcare costs for employees.

  • JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon thinks the US has an issue when it comes to spending on healthcare.
  • It's what he hopes to change with a new independent nonprofit venture announced
  • Dimon said he started chatting with Warren Buffett and
  • One way to improve, Dimon suggested, is by bringing wellness more into the healthcare picture.
  • We also
  • talked to Dimon about the bank's $20 billion investment in the US, the economy, and why he won't run for office.
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Jamie Dimon is fed up with the way America does healthcare.

In a conversation with Business Insider's Matt Turner, the JPMorgan CEO explained why he, along with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway, are banding together to form an independent nonprofit venture to lower healthcare costs for their employees.

When it comes to how the US spends on healthcare, it often doesn't make a lot of sense.

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"Look, America has an issue, OK? We spend 17% of our GDP in healthcare. You know we have the best of all worlds, some of the best healthcare in the world. And the worst of all worlds. We don't do very good preventive medicine. It costs too much," Dimon said.

The rising spending is something Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett has called the "

And getting people to be more active consumers in the healthcare system with health plans that feature deductibles —thasn't gone over as well as expected.

"Going into deductibles was important to get you to shop a little bit but hasn't really worked really well," Dimon said.

The three companies are self-insured employers, which means that when you're an employee going to a doctor's appointment, your employer is ultimately footing the bill for the MRI you receive, rather than a health insurer. The insurance companies are there in the middle to handle the logistics of getting the claim from one place to another.

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"So I tell people, JP Morgan Chase already buys a $1.5 billion of medical, and we self-insure," Dimon said. "Think of this, we're already the insurance company, we're already making these decisions, and we simply want do a better job."

JPMorgan for example has lowered deductibles for employees who make less than $60,000 a year. The deductible can also be tied to lifestyles as well, bringing that deductible even lower.

"If you do your wellness stuff now, if you take care of yourself, if you don't smoke, we give you benefits and the deductible effectively goes to zero," he said. "So we've kind of really made it easier for folks to get proper medical care."

Dimon said he started chatting with Buffett and

"There are ways that, when you face this, maybe we can change things to make it much better for everybody," Dimon said. "We want happier employees, better medical outcomes, and I do think at the end of the day that'll actually be cheaper."

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Following is a full transcript of the conversation.

Matt Turner:

Jamie Dimon: L

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