Our medical care may finally be improving, thanks to America’s innovators. For years, we’ve watched as Amazon’s presence in commerce has resulted in lower prices, more access to unknown sellers and efficient, affordable delivery becoming a standard business practice. Now, Amazon wants to make those changes in the medical services industry through its acquisition of One Medical, a health services company.
Many Americans don’t have access to reasonable healthcare, and One Medical is at the forefront of innovating here. OneMedical has already seen significant success from their existing programs, and with support from Amazon, the company can now take these gains to the next level.
In just the past couple of days since the acquisition, Amazon discounted OneMedical’s prices for new customers. And by integrating Amazon’s additional tools into One Medical, like their web hosting service Amazon Web Services, these prices may go even lower. We’ve seen Amazon’s success already from their pharmacy, which launched in 2020. With Amazon Pharmacy, they have again demonstrated how more competition in the marketplace is beneficial for consumers. These investments will increase access and make care from all businesses better, as Americans expect better services for a reasonable price.
At the same time, we’re watching similar progress be made with Meta’s acquisition of Within, a VR fitness company. Meta plans to take the $20/month exercise app and elevate its quality and likely lower its prices to users – making it cheaper to get healthy. And Google is trying to democratize health tracking by acquiring the health device company Fitbit. By doing this, Google can bring this health technology to millions of Americans by integrating it into the products we already own.
This is the power of the free market in plain view—helping small technology businesses scale and become game-changers for all Americans. But because of the Biden administration’s disgust with America’s tech innovators, these beneficial acquisitions are taking longer, costing more and may not even happen.
Google began its acquisition of Fitbit back in 2019, but the Department of Justice (DOJ) is trying to block the merger over an antitrust concern despite booming competition in this emerging market. Rather than having this health device available to us all during COVID, the Fitbit business stalled in limbo. The DOJ’s bureaucratic stonewalling didn’t help consumers. It actually kept important health tools out of their reach.
Likewise, Amazon and Meta are only now completing their respective acquisitions of OneMedical and Within. Both announced in July 2022, these life-enhancing mergers were again slowed by executive agencies, this time by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). But after languishing in court, they were finally allowed to proceed.
The great irony is while both the DOJ and FTC are tasked with protecting consumers, actions like these do the opposite. The FTC’s efforts to block Amazon’s acquisition actually kept prices for medical services higher for longer. And it took a court slapping down the frivolous FTC action against Meta to get them to finally allow the merger.
Millions of taxpayer dollars have already been wasted by the Biden administration’s fruitless attacks on American businesses like Amazon, Meta and Google. And Americans lost out on time, lower prices and more services—all because of the intransigence of Biden’s FTC and DOJ. Fortunately, Congress has begun looking into this progressive project. Lawmakers must require the leaders of the FTC and DOJ to explain under oath their wasteful and destructive efforts to block American businesses’ growth, and they must prevent this government waste and overreach from continuing.
America’s leading businesses are blazing a path for lower prices, more access and better quality of lives for us all. If only Biden’s bureaucracy would get out of the way and let them do so.