On the Case...

In a recent post, my correspondent asked �(w)hen will WalMart buy some hospitals and offer their own health care?� I flippantly replied �never.� Apparently, I jumped the gun:

�Former American Online chairman Steve Case wants to shake up the health care industry with a $500 million company he founded [in April]. The Washington, D.C.-based firm, called Revolution, plans to buy controlling interests in companies that provide health care and wellness services.�

Thus far, Revolution has purchased four entities to serve as a sort of launching pad: one is a health news aggregator, another is a sort of referral and appointment service, the third offers software that enables consumers to manage their health info, and the last is a sort of community-based WebMD.

Once the company is �off the ground,� it plans to enter the health insurance marketplace, offering what looks like consumer-driven products in both the individual and group markets.

It�s not really clear how they�ll differentiate themselves from �the pack,� nor how competitive they�ll be. But it�s nice to see someone from �corporate America� putting up their own money. And, even more importantly, it�s these kinds of innovations that represent the real answers to the arguments put forth in the book we reviewed earlier.