Businesses Look at Washington and Say, ‘Never Mind, We’ll Do It’
“When Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan, three leaders in their industries,
looked around, they realized that health care is a big issue facing them all.”
Their efforts stem from a feeling that, with partisan bickering
and constant campaigning consuming Washington, the onus is on businesses to fill the void left by an ineffective government.
In a brief statement that provided virtually no details, the chief executives of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway
and JPMorgan Chase said they were fed up with the state of the health care system, and were convinced they could do better themselves.
Just this past week, the ambitions reached new heights when three of today’s most successful business leaders said they would form an independent company aimed at lowering the burden
that health care places on the economy while improving the system for their employees.
Similar efforts by chief executives today recall “an earlier era of corporate statesmanship,”
said Lee Drutman, a fellow at New America, a research and policy institute.
“A lot of these business leaders viewed a business as having a somewhat broader public mission.”
Now, he said, thanks to “the rise, over the last 15 years, of the importance of social responsibly
and social mission, there is a broad movement in business.”
Even Amazon’s much-publicized efforts to select a city for a second headquarters could, in a roundabout way, influence local policymakers.
