Buffett: Berkshire-Amazon-JPMorgan healthcare initiative to have a CEO in 'a couple of months'

Dion Rabouin
·Anchor

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The healthcare initiative that could upend the insurance industry announced by Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase could have its next chief executive within the next two months, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett said on Saturday.

Buffett said during the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Saturday that the company was “making a lot of progress” and would likely have a CEO in place “within a couple of months.”

Buffett has said that getting a CEO in place is the first major step to launching the company and that nothing is going to happen without a “great” executive appointed. In fact, Berkshire investment exec Todd Combs is supposedly spending 40 hours a week on the project.

This combination of photos from left shows Warren Buffett on Sept. 19, 2017, in New York, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, on Sept. 24, 2013, in Seattle and JP Morgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon on July 12, 2013, in New York. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon and the New York bank JPMorgan Chase are teaming up to create a health care company announced Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, that is
Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos and Jamie Dimon are teaming up to create a health care company announced Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, that is “free from profit-making incentives and constraints.” (AP Photos)

Berkshire, Amazon and JPMorgan, unveiled an yet-to-be-named company in January that it said was dedicated to finding a way to control costs and improve the quality of health care it offers to the 840,000 people the three firms collectively employ. In a statement, they said the company would be free of “profitmaking incentives and constraints.”

Healthcare stock investors have been waiting with baited breath for an announcement on the next step from the trio of major companies.

“We simply have three organizations that we admire and trust … and we hope to … change a system that was taking 5% of GDP in 1960 and now is taking close to 18%,” Buffett said on Saturday.

Stay with Yahoo Finance for comprehensive coverage of Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway.

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Dion Rabouin is a markets reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter: @DionRabouin.

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