With help from Arthur Allen (@arthurallen202) and Mohana Ravindranath (@ravindranize)

FUTURISTS VS ANALYSTS: Analysts are skeptical about the transformative powers of the Amazon-JPMorgan-Berkshire Hathaway joint venture. Futurists, however, are dreaming big, our colleague Mohana Ravindranath reports.

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The key question, they say, is whether Jeff Bezos and his partners are thinking middle- or long-term.

The companies have been quiet about what technological (or other) innovation their venture might bring, but Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has launched projects spanning from checkout-free grocery stores to Blue Origin, the aerospace company he founded 17 years ago that’s building rockets for people to live and work in space.

The announcement could lead to technological innovations ranging from simpler, more searchable online marketplaces to fancier remote monitoring. We’ll be following the developments. Pros can get the rest here.

DOJ WANTS MORE INFO ON MEGAMERGER: The Department of Justice wants information on Aetna and CVS’s $69 billion megamerger, an SEC filing from CVS today revealed. The request extends the waiting period before the companies can consummate the merger, and the companies must still seek investor approval as well. We’re sure both companies will play nicely with the feds, and at any rate, per the filing, CVS still expects the sale to close in the second half of the year.

eHealth tweets of the day: Tung Nguyen @ARCHDrNguyen It's 2018. I have a pager. We still teach how to interpret heart sounds. EHR changes to my diagnoses are not permanent automatically. Can't get patient-reported data into EHR except by typing or scanning #CallMeaLudditeButI'veGotDoubtsAboutMedicalTechnologyMakingLifeBetter

Craig Garthwaite @C_Garthwaite People who strongly believe the new Amazon et al. venture will disrupt health care providers share the same affliction as those who think selling insurance across state lines is a panacea -- they fail to think about the difference between the effects of national and local scale.

FRIDAY: So — who you all got in the Super Bowl? For the second straight year, your correspondent is rooting against the Patriots, but suspects that they are depressingly inevitable and invincible. Share your takes at dtahir@politico.com. Talk sports on social media — imagine that! — at @ravindranize, @arthurallen202, @dariustahir, @POLITICOPro, @Morning_eHealth.

FUTURE ATTRACTIONS AT FCC: The Federal Communications Commission will vote to free up more broadband spectrum at its hearing February 22, the commission announced today. Increased access means more wireless service, FCC chair Ajit Pai said in a blog post touting the vote. For health care, such access might mean more apps and doodads and what-have-you.

EARNINGS CALL SEASON BEGINS: Companies began announcing earnings from the fourth quarter of 2017 Thursday:

— athenahealth: The Massachusetts EHR vendor had a solid finish to 2017, the company announced ahead of a Friday morning conference call to discuss their results. 2017 revenue leapt by 13 percent over full-year 2016 results, and the company’s small hospital IT system is now live in 62 hospitals, nearly double the total at the beginning of the year.

— Apple: Apple makes a ton of money, the company revealed Thursday. Despite the hype earlier in the month about its records foray, it didn’t discuss any of its health IT initiatives during the earnings call.

CONGRESS: You might see another short-term funding bill. The current deal keeps the lights on through Feb. 8, and the House GOP might call a vote on another short-term bill — this one keeping the government open through late March — next week.

ENCOUNTER DATA IN NEW MEDICARE ADVANTAGE RATES: CMS’s new set of rates for the Medicare Advantage program includes a data announcement: it’ll increase the percentage of 'encounter data' — claims data — that’s used to set rates to 25 percent, up from 15 percent this year. That percentage would merely restore the formula the Obama administration set for 2017 plans, and it's less aggressive than the 50 percent rate proposed two years ago.

Insurers have argued that the encounter data isn’t accurate and shouldn’t be used at all. By contrast, the Government Accountability Office has pushed for greater reliance on the claims records.

NQF RECOMMENDATIONS: A National Quality Forum workgroup — which offers advice to the federal government on quality measures — submitted recommendations to HHS on 35 measures Thursday. One of those measures — on spine imaging — didn’t receive the group’s support, while the rest received varying degrees of approval.

NORTH CAROLINA JOINS PDMP DATA-SHARING COMPACT: North Carolina has joined the PDMP InterConnect compact, a group that promotes data-sharing between states, the state’s PDMP vendor Appriss Health announced Thursday. 46 states are now members of the agreement, leaving four — California, Florida, Nebraska, and Washington — outside the program.

Data-sharing is perceived as a key barrier to maximizing the effectiveness of the databases, with the White House’s opioid commission recommending nationwide interoperability as part of its recent report on combatting the public health crisis.

Various IT companies led by trade group Health IT Now have recently been pushing an alternative solution to the problem, a so-called “facilitator,” which would cull data from state programs automatically. But many other groups feel current state PDMPs are working well.

At any rate, it’s also unclear that PDMPs — as presently constituted and used — are effective. Some academic studies suggest that the use of PDMPs pushes patients off of addiction prescription drugs to addiction to illegal drugs, like heroin and fentanyl, that are more dangerous.

NEW CERNER CEO HAS PERSONAL STAKE IN VA DEAL: New Cerner CEO Brent Shafer says he has a personal connection to Cerner’s long-gestating deal with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Shafer’s father was a World War II veteran, he told the Kansas City Business Journal.

“In the '90s, [I remember] how confusing it was, how hard it was to keep all of [the records] straight,” he said. Shafer said he hopes the Cerner-VA deal will help solve some of the nationwide interoperability problems. “You see how disconnected patient information is.”

Shafer steps into a delicately poised situation at Cerner. He replaces company co-founder Neal Patterson, who passed last summer from cancer. Business-wise, it’s not all sunshine and mint chocolate chip ice cream in Kansas City. Key client Advocate Health Care, an Illinois health system, is merging with Aurora Health Care of Milwaukee, and the combination has decided to go with Epic across all its platforms.

As Shafer seemingly alluded to, the Cerner deal with the VA is in holding pattern over interoperability — specifically, VA Secretary David Shulkin’s check into its capabilities. Meanwhile, the Kansas City vendor’s other big government deal, with the Department of Defense, has hit a slight snag. Its implementation in the Pacific Northwest has been paused for about eight weeks, at least in part because of complaints from clinicians.

PERSONNEL NOTE: Standards group HL7 International appointed Andy Truscott to its board Thursday. Truscott, an executive with Accenture, is also a member of the Health IT Advisory Committee.

WHAT WE’RE CLICKING ON:

—A JAMA-Oncology perspective says that machine learning in pathology won’t cure all ills.

—It will take some big investments to get the innovation needed to improve the flu vaccine.

—Docs have feelings about quality metrics.