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