4 ms·

I do think this move is rather unoriginal, and is a 'me too' effort vs CVS & Aetna. There's probably a little CVS/Aetna in their decision making, but I'm prett

I do think this move is rather unoriginal, and is a 'me too' effort vs CVS & Aetna. There's probably a little CVS/Aetna in their decision making, but I'm pretty confident this is much more an "Oh crap!" response to the Amazon / Berkshire Hathaway / Chase Healthcare venture announced earlier this year. Walmart sees Amazon already looking at its core markets: cheap Chinese crap, groceries, pharmacy. Its choices are to compete or to watch Amazon do to it what it did to downtown shops over the last 40 years.

brownbat 9y ago
It feels like everything Walmart does is in part a response to Bezos. And given Buffett's exit last year, maybe him too. It's not a totally crazy response, though. Even considering Berkshire and Amazon haven't announced any real details and could basically just be self-insuring their workers through a nonprofit they fund to reduce administrative costs and taxes. But it's like corporate Go. You so much as signal interest in a corner and the other side has to reposition itself so it could defend the possibility.