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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 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.