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Uber sues California to block gig-worker law going into effect this week:
Ride-hailing service Uber filed a lawsuit Monday against the state of California, alleging a landmark gig-worker law set to go into effect is unconstitutional. The lawsuit seeks to block AB 5, which has the potential to upend gig economy companies such as Uber and Lyft.
The complaint, which also lists Postmates as a plaintiff, argues that the law unfairly targets workers and companies in the on-demand economy, treating them differently than traditional employees and threatening their flexibility.
In September, California became the first state to pass a law aimed at protecting gig worker rights, which forces Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Postmates and other gig economy companies reclassify their workers as employees. Using independent contractors allows the companies to shift many costs to the workers.
The lawsuit says the law arbitrarily exempts dozens of occupations, including direct salespeople, travel agents, grant writers, commercial fishermen and construction truck drivers, among others.
"There is no rhyme or reason to these nonsensical exemptions, and some are so ill-defined or entirely undefined that it is impossible to discern what they include or exclude," says the complaint (see below), which was filed in a Los Angeles federal court.
Postmates and Uber v State of California on Scribd
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01 2020, @05:43PM (3 children)
All you are saying is that if you halve the patient costs then you halve the revenue of the entrenched parties. Businesses are usually opposed to halving their revenue, and are often willing to take unethical or even illegal actions to avoid it. Hence the media blitz against better systems. By definition better systems will drop the revenue of the entrenched parties.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:29AM (2 children)
Then I have succeeded in my role as communicator.
And people on the other side of the equation are similarly resistant to doubling their costs, often willing to take unethical or even illegal actions to avoid it. The catch is that the costs are significantly disengaged from the choices. As long as deductibles apply (and there are a number of health care systems beyond private insurance that have deductibles), then there's incentives for the consumers of health care to consume less. When the cap on the deductibles hits (or there's no deductible in the first place), that no longer applies and you end up with the situation where there's no resistance from the consumer to reduce the amount they consume.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @03:05AM (1 child)
Most people don't like using medical services, they do it when they have no choice. Dropping the costs by half will not make twice as many people run out and double their treatments.
In fact dropping the price to zero would probably reduce the total expenditure by reducing expensive emergency room treatments, and because early interventions is usually much cheaper and more effective than waiting until someone is carried to hospital in an ambulance.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 02 2020, @04:09AM
Depends on the treatment. Opioids are probably something that would greatly increase in demand with a reduction in cost to the consumer.
It'd reduce the total expenditure to zero. Funny how that works.