Case, Powell Team Up in New Health Care Business

Published August 1, 2005

The potential for health savings account (HSA) growth was underscored in July when AOL co-founder Steve Case and former Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the formation of a new company, Revolution Health Group (RHG), devoted to consumer-driven health care.

Case noted in a news release, “Health care is a huge industry, representing one out of six dollars in the entire U.S. economy, but it is clearly in need of transformative change. Consumers are frustrated trying to keep themselves and their families healthy in an increasingly inflexible, inconvenient, inefficient system.”

Innovation, Information Emphasized

RHG plans to acquire controlling interests in promising, innovative health care companies and build them for long-term growth.

Areas to be developed include affordable nurse-provided care at retail locations; health information to help people find a doctor or other health care provider and to learn more about medical issues and conditions; tools for managing health care finances, especially to help small and mid-sized employers help their employees; secure, easy-to-use personal health records; and innovative health coverage offering consumers new choices in how to pay for their health care.

“We will put consumers back in the center of the system by giving them more choice, control, and convenience while building the first comprehensive, consumer-driven health care company,” said Case.

Consumer Focus Lauded

Major investors in RHG include Jim Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape and AT&T Wireless and former COO of FedEx; John Delaney, co-founder and CEO of CapitalSource; David Golden, a managing director of JP Morgan; and Miles Gilburne, former head of AOL corporate development.

Other major investors include Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and founder of America’s Promise: The Alliance For Youth; Frank Raines, former CEO of Fannie Mae and former head of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget; Steve Wiggins, founder and former CEO of Oxford Health Plans; and Jeff Zients, former CEO of The Advisory Board Company.

“Steve Case and Revolution Health are bringing new thinking, innovative services, and a consumer focus to the health sector, and this is precisely what is needed,” said Grace-Marie Turner, president of The Galen Institute.

The new company, Turner said, “will create new places for consumers to get easy access to routine health care, and Steve will bring his genius in information technology to creating new ways for consumers to get timely information about health care cost and quality. The health sector desperately needs someone with Steve’s ideas and resources to usher us into the era of consumer-directed health care.”


Susan Konig ([email protected]) is managing editor of Health Care News.