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Amazon launches a low-cost version of Prime for Medicaid recipients
Amazon announced this morning it will offer a low-cost version of its Prime membership program to qualifying recipients of Medicaid. The program will bring the cost of Prime down from the usual $10.99 per month to about half that, at $5.99 per month, while still offering the full range of Prime perks, including free, two-day shipping on millions of products, Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Photos, Prime Reading, Prime Now, Audible Channels, and more.
The new program is an expansion on Amazon's discounted Prime service for customers on government assistance, launched in June 2017. For the same price of $5.99 per month, Amazon offers Prime memberships to any U.S. customer with a valid EBT card – the card that's used to disburse funds for assistance programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program (WIC).
It could be a way to get users with certain health care requirements on board before Amazon launches its own health insurance company.
Also at USA Today.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Thursday March 08 2018, @03:39PM (26 children)
One of the most astounding figures I read recently was that Medicare (for >65) is $1.3T , and Medicaid (poor and usually 65) is $1.7T.
So the US Govt pays $3T for healthcare, whats that per capita compared to Europe etc..?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday March 08 2018, @03:50PM (6 children)
With the US population at about 300million, that's ten thousand bucks per person, per year.
I wonder how that compares to the actual average COST of healthcare per person, as opposed to the hugely inflated PRICE of healthcare under your current insurance system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @03:55PM (4 children)
Also, as the other AC pointed out, "insurance" is a misnomer. It's a bizarre payment system, not a risk management system.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday March 08 2018, @04:12PM
Good point. If I were in a slightly more cynical mood today, I'd probably also say that the term "healthcare system" is a misnomer as well. From here it looks more like an obscenely complex healthcare-denial system.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NewNic on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:16PM (2 children)
Actually, it's more like a hybrid, but, with increased deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums it is transitioning to a pure insurance system.
Yes, medical insurance may pay bills that you could afford, such as visits to your doctor, but how many people could afford any amount of surgery?
The whole system is a mess, with a typical simple operation being "billed" at $50k - $100k, while the payments from the insurance for this operation are probably 1/10 of the billed amount. Similarly, I don't believe that my insurance actually pays $600 for a 15 minute consultation with a specialist doctor.
Some years ago, my insurance paid for an operation for my wife. The insurance paid about 7% of the total billed amount and I had nothing to pay. And yet, had I not had insurance, I would have been luck to get a 50% discount, not the 93% discount that my insurance company got.
Basically, the medical industry in the USA is ripping off the population.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:26PM
Whether or not I get a flu shot, or vaccinate my child, my premium remains the same.
That's not risk management.
Now, extrapolate.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @12:35PM
Whether or not I get a flu shot, or vaccinate my child, my premium remains the same.
That's not risk management.
Now, extrapolate.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:14PM
It's hard to get a clean breakdown, but from my perspective what I see is:
$10K per capita going into Medicare/caid programs.
$1K per capita going to top level GAO (general accounting overhead) - oversight, audits, program reviews, anti-fraud task forces, etc.
$2K per capita going to bottom level GAO - application processing, eligibility review, ongoing review of eligibility status, bureaucratic offices filled with surly and willfully ignorant agents who are pretty much the opposite of Bob Parr [youtube.com], payee eligibility reviews, anti-fraud audits, etc.
Actual fraud is hard to gauge, but I think the system is running at a pretty optimal balance where they spend just about as much preventing fraud as the remaining fraud in the system, call it $500 per capita.
So, hey, that's not so bad: $6500 per capita going toward actual healthcare, right? And, it's not as if the $3500 per capita is wasted, all those bureaucrats have jobs, participate in the local economy, etc. Hell, even the fraudsters are out there buying luxury goods... it's still beneficial to the economy.
But, as GreatAuntAnesthesia pointed out, that's $6500 feeding the PRICE of healthcare side of the machine, not the COST, so slice another 50%+ off of _that_ to feed the GAO, profit centers, and fraud in the insurance and reimbursement layers of the system.
My mother in law is in Assisted Living, and one aspect of her Assisted Living program is a Medicaid eligible $19/day fee for, basically, someone to look in on her every 2 hours. On paper, they are supposed to be assisting with bathing and other activities of daily life, but in reality they give her her pills once a day and are otherwise "on call" incase she falls or something (which has happened more than once...) For a big assisted living facility with maybe 120 residents, there are usually about 2 LPNs on staff who provide this $19 per day service to all 100+ residents, plus other things too. 3 shifts, 6 LPNs generating $1900+ per day of income for the facility whether through private pay or medicaid. The LPNs don't get $40 per hour, they get more like $20/hr, the rest seems to get sucked up into GAO.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tizan on Thursday March 08 2018, @04:41PM (13 children)
Don't forget only a small fraction goes to financing health issues...most of it is sucked by private health related companies "scamming" the system.
Here a health transportation company will charge medicaid $45 or so for medical related trip when a taxi would charge $7 for the same trip (ok there is an overhead to file for the reimbursement etc... still say they charged $10 or $15 ....but $45 shows how the lobbyist for these service companies are managing to sell this to politicians).
Poor people needs it but most of the money spent is taken by private insurance, providers etc way more than the value of service provided.
It would be better off if poor poeple go to government hospitals system like the VA and use government run transportation...but that is too communist in this country because it might be cheaper than private providers alternative.
We know the government does things cheaper when they are well managed...just compare private contractors to the US army ?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by stretch611 on Thursday March 08 2018, @05:34PM (12 children)
Makes you wonder why we don't just have government run healthcare for all here in the US.
The government's healthcare bill is not just the amount mentioned for Medicaid/Medicare. It also includes the VA... and active duty military... and the president... and congress... and all the millions of people that work for the government.
Between the old, the poor, and all the government employees (both military and non-military) a huge portion of the US population is already getting its healthcare bill paid by our government. If we get rid of the profit minded middlemen (aka the insurance companies) the savings from that will probably more than pay the price of insuring all of the rest.
In addition, go into any doctors office today... practically every single one has at least one full time worker dedicated to just dealing with insurance companies. When insurance verification requires just a drivers license (or SSN) all of those duties will be reduced to practically nothing saving even more money.
Of course yes, healthcare for all is a socialist/communist policy so it must be evil and discounted by any thinking person... bullsh!t!!!
I still remember the opposition mantra back when Obamacare was being created... one huge argument was then you have the government making life or death care decisions(approval/denials) for people needing medical procedures. That argument fails horribly when you compare it to the profit-minded insurance companies that make those decisions now.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:29PM
So much of health care is dominated by the government already, and yet it's a clusterfuck.
The only thing going for the current system is that what does exist of a private sector is the driving force behind the entire planet's medical innovation.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:33PM (10 children)
Because too much of the population have been brainwashed into thinking that "taxation is theft" and that the government is full of corruption and waste while private companies are entirely free of such issues.
There was a teacher in West Virginia who was on strike for better pay, but didn't see the connection between low taxes and no money for education. It's those people who would prefer to pay 10x as much to a private company than pay for something through taxes.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:57PM (9 children)
If a private company is full of corruption/waste, at least I can choose to do whatever I can to avoid funding that company; I can use alternatives, I can choose to do without, or I can even band together with like minds and make an entirely new company with which to compete.
You don't have that choice if the service provider is the government.
That's the difference; that's what leads people to the word "theft".
Paying for the roads I use? OK. That's a just fee for usage/maintenance levied by the owner of the road.
Bombing roads on the other side of the planet? Throwing people into cages for growing a plant in the "privacy" of their own homes? No. You'll have to steal my money if you want me to pay for that nonsense; you'll have to stick a gun and my face and tell me to pay up "or else". That's not a just fee; that's taxation.
To borrow a phrase: Get it yet?
(Score: 2) by Bobs on Thursday March 08 2018, @07:16PM (1 child)
Of course you can vote, and run for office, and publicize problems, etc to motivate elected officials to change.
Versus the influence over a local monopoly or oligopoly, who owe their primary allegiance to maximizing a profit for their shareholders/owners, not you.
Elections do make a difference: Just ask the people trying to get an abortion, living in Quatar or Iraq, or the people in the US working on selling and installing solar, or trying to build things with aluminum or steel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @07:27PM
That's why it's "theft".
Elections resulted in 100-year-old beer pubs being declared illegal and put out of business by men-with-guns.
Are you really going to argue there's no difference between that method of organizing society and capitalism? It's really all just the same voluntary participation?
Government is all about removing property rights against the will of the person who gathered those rights from his community; that's called theft.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:03PM (4 children)
No, [courthousenews.com] you can't. [npr.org] Unless you don't want that medicine at all?
The simple fact is that the UK shows that the largely private medical "system" in the USA is vastly expensive. Whether this is due to incompetence, illegal behaviour or simple greed isn't important.
But idiots like you would prefer to pay 10x what it should cost because, "hurr, durr, taxation is theft!".
I have no problem agreeing with you that the amount of money spent on the military is far too large. The problem is that any tax cuts inevitably don't address that issue: instead, they affect benefits and services for ordinary people.
As for locking up people for growing certain plants: in general the same people who don't want to pay taxes do support locking up people for what they grow in the privacy of their own homes. This is because they one thing they mostly have in common is an authoritarian attitude.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:12PM (3 children)
It's like you see nothing but keywords that trigger your builtin copy/paste algorithm.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:41PM (2 children)
I see that you don't really want to engage in rational debate, but would prefer insults.
Two can play at that game: Go fuck yourself, you childish moron.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @10:08PM
So. Yeah. "Go fuck yourself, you childish moron."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @01:54AM
So. Yeah. "Go fuck yourself, you childish moron."
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:12PM (1 child)
To add to my prior comments, I would bet that you actually voted for the party that wants ever increasing military spending and wants to lock people up for growing or taking cannabis.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:22PM
Should I send you a Bitcoin address to pay me for having lost?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 08 2018, @05:13PM
Yeah, but as a culture we're constantly shaming anyone who takes such benefits, painting them as a worthless drag on society - so you can't just extend those programs and give them to everyone.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by NewNic on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:04PM (3 children)
It's about 3x the per capita spending of the UK's National Health Service, while covering only 1/4 of the population, while the NHS covers 100% of the population.
So government in the USA spends about 12x more per covered person than the UK does and get poorer results. Yay, the free market at work!
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @07:02PM (1 child)
Your argument is totally unpersuasive, because it's clear that America's free market in medical care is in the intensive care unit with a weak pulse. The few places where there actually is a free market (e.g., LASIK surgery) has seen rapid improvements in quality and cost.
Indeed, there are people on your side of this issue in these very comments [soylentnews.org] who point out the vast influence that a meddling, distorting, violently imposed government already plays in the health care sector.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:17PM
The cognitive dissonance required to blame government for the high cost of a service provided by the private sector is very high.
The reason Lasik is cheaper is that it is elective. People can simply continue to use grasses or contacts instead of having Lasik. The impact on quality of life is minimal.
Also, elective surgery isn't cheap in the USA. Go to almost any other country and you can get that plastic surgery much cheaper.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:42PM
Oh and it get's better!
The stupidity of Trumpcare: Government will spend $33 billion more to cover 8.9 million fewer Americans, as premiums soar [latimes.com]