Haven, a joint venture of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase formed three years ago to make US health care more affordable, announced on Monday it will disband.

The venture will end in February, Haven announced on its website, adding that the three companies plan to "continue to collaborate informally to design programs tailored to address the specific needs of their own employee populations."

"In the past three years, Haven explored a wide range of health care solutions, as well as piloted new ways to make primary care easier to access, insurance benefits simpler to understand and easier to use, and prescription drugs more affordable," the companies said in a statement.

Jeff Bezos's Amazon, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and the financial giant had announced in 2019 they would create a nonprofit health care plan to "provide US employees and their families with simplified, high-quality and transparent health care at a reasonable cost."

The trio aimed to become a disruptor in the health care industry just as Amazon has in retail, using their combined data, technology, buying power and customer contacts to improve delivery while cutting costs.

The companies did not specify how many people would benefit under the new program, but a source told AFP at the time domestic employees of the companies and their dependents likely amount to at least a million workers nationwide.

Rising health care costs in the United States, the only major economy that does not provide universal medical coverage to its citizens, is a perennial political issue that is expected to be on the agenda for President-elect Joe Biden when he takes office later this month.

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