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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: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday March 08 2018, @03:44PM (8 children)
Isn't it also true that people with less money / assets / income are less likely to own a car? And that people without a car in the USA have real difficulty getting to the big out-of-town shops where the best prices are, and even more difficulty difficulty transporting heavy purchases (such as a week's worth of groceries) home again? And don't Amazon sell groceries nowadays?
If I was a poor person in America, and I didn't own a car, I would be giving serious consideration to this as a way of getting cheap necessities delivered for almost free.
Furthermore, if I were poor but DID own a car, I would be seriously looking at whether this service would allow me to ditch the expense of owning a car altogether. If I could get to work on the bus (or didn't work at all) and lived within walking distance of family & friends, then why not?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 08 2018, @05:09PM (1 child)
Maybe in limited markets like Seattle... Amazon Prime Pantry is no substitute for a grocery store.
Nice thought, but Amazon (for me) is mostly a way to stay out of the shopping malls - premium luxury optional goods, not a reliable or complete or particularly cost-competitive source of "essentials."
Back in 2002, our local (serving a 300 mile radius) grocery chain trialed an internet shopping direct delivery to the home program - we had a new baby and participated heavily, probably >90% of our groceries came by direct delivery over a 6 month period. I think they charged $10 per order, but frequently ran specials for free or much reduced delivery fees. Their minimum order was $50, but we tried to keep our minimum closer to $200 to cut down on the delivery fee percentage. They drove a refrigerated truck direct from the distribution center (200 miles away) to our neighborhood and brought the groceries into the house. I wish that program were still running, it really could enable some people to get rid of their car. Groceries are the essentials of life - not books, DVDs, electronic gadgets, etc. Amazon Prime Pantry does deliver some groceries to most of the US, but not enough to really live off of. They also have a couple of trial markets for full grocery delivery, but less than 1% of the US population is served by those.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @07:06PM
Here where I live, Safeway, Sprouts, and I think King Soopers all offer home delivery of food.
Sprouts promises a 1 hour delivery time I believe.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Phoenix666 on Thursday March 08 2018, @07:27PM (5 children)
People in America need cars because they think they need cars, not because they actually do. How do I know this? Because there are many other places in the world where people manage without cars. I once saw an entire dining room set, including the table and all six chairs, being pedaled down the road on a cyclo in Saigon. In Beijing, I've seen cargo bikes resupplying grocery stores. In NYC, all kinds of immigrants get around perfectly well with bikes, even e-bikes, because they can't legally drive. When I was a kid, living in the Rockies, I worked with a bunch of guys who were all part of the local cycling club; they laughed and laughed at all the suffering drivers during one of the oil shocks because none of it affected them (and those guys biked year round up and down mountains, through all weather).
I have a car, and like having a car. But it's not necessary.
At the end of the day, Americans especially could use more exercise, and the way things are going they really ought to ditch their cars and put all the money they'd accordingly save into investments for retirement, because god knows Social Security will have been sucked dry long before the Baby Boomers are done.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NewNic on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:50PM (4 children)
I have seen an entire kitchen's worth of cabinets and other furniture being transported on a gondola down a canal. So, using your logic, we can use gondolas for all our transport needs?
Just because something works in one country, doesn't mean it will work in another.
For many people, the options are: travel by car or ... can't get there. Bikes are not a viable solution for many people*. The real reason for this is that public transport is underfunded in the USA. Would you care to do something about that?
* The USA has developed with the assumption of motorized transport being almost universally available. The US is not like most other countries in this respect.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday March 08 2018, @10:29PM (3 children)
You're right. My mistake. Bikes totally can't travel on solid ground called roads. Also, other countries have a compound called oxygen in the air that humans can breathe. The United States only has methane, so people totally couldn't breathe outside a car.
JFC, it's not that Americans cannot bike, it's that they won't. The average commute is 23 miles. A person can bike that. Given the traffic in the Tri-State area (and many other places), a person on a bicycle would very often get home faster on a bike than sitting in a car. Also, they'd save time because they wouldn't need to make an extra trip to a gym.
We don't have to speculate or theorize how life would be possible without cars, because those places already exist and function rather well. I myself lived in Japan, no Third World, pre-industrial nation, and never had a need for a car despite travelling all over the prefecture from the cities to the middle of the rice paddies on a daily basis.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday March 08 2018, @10:41PM (1 child)
Most of Japan has much better public transport than most of the USA. Or are you claiming that you cycled everywhere?
A lot of people in the USA commute on limited-access highways (freeways or tollways) and there isn't a viable route for bikes.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday March 09 2018, @02:36PM
I did cycle everywhere. I was in Saga Prefecture on Kyushu. It was quite rural. There was no subway. There was a light rail spur that connected Nagasaki to Fukuoka, but didn't fan out into the prefecture. Buses were infrequent.
There is even less room for bikes in Japan than there is in the United States, yet I biked everywhere. Most roads don't even have shoulders you can ride on, much less bike paths. Very often there is an abrupt edge to the road and a 2-3 foot drop into a rice paddy. Riding at night can therefore be quite tricky, with no street lights or nearby homes to light your way, only ambient light on the horizon, starlight, or a bike light.
In short, there's no real excuse for Americans to not bike more. They just don't want to, or they've been brainwashed by generations of Detroit's advertising into thinking cycling is incredibly impossible or dangerous. If you throw in aftermarket e-bike kits that are common now, there's even less excuse.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @11:48PM
It's not allowed to bike or walk on many highways in the US (yes even on the shoulder). So yeah, I can walk and get some places, but to leave the state or even travel to another town in my county, I absolutely have to have a car or I'm breaking the law, as well as rising life and limb trying to cross 6 70mph lanes. Living without a vehicle means being corralled and having very few options for anything.