Two short takes on two Must Reads to make time for this weekend. Neither are short and both are dense. Likely like you, I won’t be reading either at one sitting. But you should put them on the pile.
Walmart Has Failed at Healthcare 8 Times. Now It’s Trying for a 9th. Author: Sergei Polevikov, AI Health Uncut
Sergei ‘goes there’ again with a little-noted move by Walmart to kickstart something significant in the healthcare area. It has inked a deal with TJ Parker, the co-founder of PillPack (sold to Amazon), now CEO of General Medicine, to integrate the General Medicine ‘everyday healthcare store” with Walmart’s Better Care Services, its online healthcare hub. The store comprises not only pharmacy and low cost options for medications, but also specialty care referrals and online everyday testing. You can compare prices online. Walmart release
Readers will remember the eight times previously that Walmart Health, in various and telehealth iterations, collapsed into a heap with the most recent here [TTA 30 Apr 2024, 2 July 2024]. Will this be different? It might, as the heavy lifting is done by General Medicine.
Of course, the price comparisons, particularly for branded medications, may not be as cheap as expected, but the prices may beat other retail comparison sites. I did some comparing of my own with a medication I am moving to that is not covered by my insurance. The company direct program price for 90 days is less than half of what is on offer with GM. But I had to get the referral from my physician after making my own case that the generic was possibly creating problems for me AND the most popular generic that I was on had a recent recall for sub-potency issues.
The article is available in part to non-paid subscribers. But this Editor recommends you do. Sergei is an unbought investigator in the healthcare field, and provides us with a service that is unavailable elsewhere–even here because we’re primarily a news site. It’s worth your spend because he’s the only one I think of, the ‘go to’, who marshals the numbers and puts together a credible narrative.
FYI you can meet Sergei at HLTH coming up next week. Details are in the article.
Running Dry. Author, Ed Zitron, Where’s Your Ed At?
Ed’s scathing takes on the business of AI are well known to our Readers. In this article, he goes into the fault lines that are widening with AI–and how the money spigots are starting to shut. What does that mean for Anthropic, OpenAI, and healthcare companies like Oracle? What does that mean for our Readers’ suppliers or startups? As usual, not an easy or quick cuppa read.
He opens with:
As I’ve said for a while, all of this ends when the money runs out — when seemingly-unlimited data center debt becomes distressingly hard to raise, and when AI startups can’t rely on the perpetual availability of venture capital to keep them alive.
And it appears the well is running dry, just as it dawns on everyone that the underlying economics of AI, for labs and data center operators alike, don’t really make sense.
What is really going on with OpenAI when it puts off its IPO, and raises only one-third ($11 billion) of what it hoped for last week? What is really happening with Anthropic, rushing to an IPO but with clear evidence of slowing business and millstones of liabilities? TTA 5 Nov
“The bubble bursts when the money runs out.” AI is no exception to any kind of startup, from telehealth, RPM, health IT, telecom, deregulated airlines, and tulips.
And another worthwhile subscription (on sale today!)
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