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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, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday March 08 2018, @05:24PM (4 children)
And that's how entitlements become a bribe for the status quo. You knuckle under to the corruption just because there are a "few things" that you approve of. The scary people that would fix that corruption would also cut your favored programs, because those are out of control spending. It's a shame that so many people chose the quick buck now rather than a future later.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:25PM (3 children)
It's definitely much simpler than that. Letting people suffer health issues that they aren't into suffering, which could be ameliorated, is not something I can get behind.
You personally want to have no medical care and suffer some serious problem? I'm right behind you. Suffer away. I'll take pictures and write snarky comments, maybe try to sell your body parts as they fall off.
But for those who don't want to slide down the masochistic razor blade of life, I think we're well past the level a society needs to get to where it not only can help, it should help.
The rest of the social-safety-net arguments are all low-level noise to me. Government has no monopoly on corruption – the private sector's record in dealing with the poor is awful – nor do I think that throwing out the baby with the bathwater is advisable here. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, or even the adequate. Set something up that works (the ACA works with the established insurance industry, for instance), then improve it. If you want to replace it, by all means, but make sure the replacement is better. Otherwise, you're just imposing unnecessary suffering, no matter what excuses you might try to field to explain your behavior.
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:29PM
Well, they can't scare you by withholding Halliburton's swag, can they?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @07:05PM (1 child)
It does in the sectors over which it has declared itself a monopoly.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Thursday March 08 2018, @09:11PM
Oh, does it? You mean like regulating recreational drugs such as alcohol and pot and so forth, in allowing and disallowing and sales? Surely you see no extra-governmental corruption there, eh? How about WRT the control of the airwaves - no, no corruption in the private sector there, right? How about in tax collection? That's 100% government, right? And not a single bit of corruption in the private sector WRT taxes, right? Right? What about patents? Totally a government monopoly. Surely there's no private sector corruption around patents! Private sector use of copyrights corrupt? IMPROBAPOSSIBLE©! Legislation? Legislation is all-government, all-the-time. And the largest corrupt influence on that? The bloody private sector, that's what. The courts? Again, 100% government monopoly. Private sector never corruptly involves themselves there, right? FFS.
No. Turns out, you have zero idea whatsoever what you're talking about.
The government establishes a monopoly in some area of any real consequence, the private sector often enough weasels right in there and turns it into a slimy mess. Which areas? Why, the ones with large enough amounts of money at stake and available to wave around, of course.
Human nature, as amply demonstrated by all manner of private entities: The "haves" will inevitably try to lord it over the "have-nots." They will drone on about how the lowly deserve to be low because reasons, and the lowly should suffer because reasons, and the lowly should be grateful because reasons, and on and on and on. While this goes on, the money trickles up, and the disadvantages waterfall downwards. Leroy Moneybags III has his yacht and his facelift, and Joe Poorboy has his ramen noodles and his unrevised hernia. All is right with the world because reasons. No. Just no.
A good bit of this is why we can't actually get along without government. People are selfish, mean, and heartless, and the more leverage they have, the more likely those particular flaws will float to the surface as steaming personality turds. Our (US) form of government, for all its myriad flaws, tends to buffer that stuff and expose more of it than the typical private entity – and our government at least has often recognized it actually has a responsibility to the people, something many – most – private entities would just as soon you never brought up.
Yeah, government is corrupt as hell, and it's annoying when things don't go perfectly, or even well. But don't even bother to try to tell me that private enterprise is very likely to do it better. Responsible businesses with real social consciences are pretty bloody rare.
You know that bit about "corporations are like people"? Yeah, they are – and the people they are like are the psychopaths and sociopaths.