Charlie Munger: Rising medical costs in the US are 'evil'
Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK-A, BRK-B) vice chairman, Charlie Munger, is “all for” his company and other corporate giants figuring out how to cut costs in the U.S. healthcare system.
Back in January, Amazon (AMZN), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Berkshire Hathaway announced a partnership where they’re working together to address rising health care costs in the U.S. for their employees.
“The existing system runs out of control on the cost side and it causes a lot of behavior, which is not only regrettable, it’s evil,” Munger, 94, said at the Daily Journal’s (DJCO) annual meeting.
He added that there’s a lot of “totally unnecessary” costs that have crept into the medical system. His comments on Tuesday echo what he’s said for years. At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting in 2017, he said there’s “too much medicine” and “too much chemotherapy” for people who are “all but dead.”
The Amazon-JPMorgan-Berkshire Hathaway partnership will look at how the incentives have gone wrong and come up with a solution.
“Of course, that’s a very difficult thing to take on,” Munger said. “I don’t know how it will work out.”
Presently, the American medical system is like vultures treating the sick like a “carcass.”
“It’s not right to bleed so much money,” he said, adding that it’s “deeply wrong” what’s happened.
Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
