Who is health care’s Amazon.com?

That is the quesition PwC’s Health Research Institute (HRI) asks in it’s latest report.  Although the report does not make any specific predictions, there are some interesting case studies it presents.  Some of these case studies include: Earlier this year, Samsung unveiled its new Galaxy S5 smartphone, complete with a built-in heart rate monitor. In…

Aetna bets on Obamacare

Today, Aetna, the third-largest U.S. health plan, agreed to buy Coventry Health Care for $5.6 billion.  Aetna paid a 20 percent premium for Coventry.  Why is Coventry such an attractive target? The answer is that President Obama’s Health Reform will greatly expand the number of people eligilbe for Medicaid.  Since many states are moving towards…

Will CVS Caremark split up?

CVS is the second largest pharmacy in the U.S. with over 7000 stores.  Caremark Pharmacy Services is a pharmacy benefit management (PBM) company, providing benefit management services to health plans.  In March of 2007 the two firms merged.  The combined firm not only has $99 billion in sales, CVS Caremark also has the ability not to…

Why did the post office lose $1 billion?

The International Herald Tribune reports that the U.S. Postal Service has posted a $1.1 billion dollar loss in the past quarter. What are the reasons for this huge loss? First, total mail volume is down 5.5% from last year, likely due to the economic slowdown and the gradual increase in internet communication over time. Also,…