—–The most important part of the Republican health bill is mostly getting ignored
Don’t forget Medicaid.
“A massive expansion of the Medicaid program was one of the key pillars of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, and the AHCA rolls it back in a sneaky way. That rollback will deprive millions of vulnerable people of health insurance on its own terms if the bill is ever enacted in its current form. But the AHCA actually goes even further with Medicaid cuts — enacting broad cuts to the program’s spending that compound over time, offsetting a massive package of tax cuts for the rich.”
—–G.O.P. Bill Could Affect Employer Health Coverage, Too
“About half of all Americans get health coverage through work. The bill would make it easier for employers to increase the amount that employees could be asked to pay in premiums, or to stop offering coverage entirely. It also has the potential to weaken rules against capping worker’s benefits or limiting how much employees can be asked to pay in deductibles or co-payments. … The possible effects on the employer health system got little attention during congressional debate.”
Why don’t all the news outlets that report the 8 billion (with a “b”) dollars Republicans offered up to help states subsidize high risk pools EMPHASIZE that this is spread over 5 years and 16 trillion (with a “t”) dollar overall health bill: one — ONE TWO-THOUSANDTHS of the overall bill to pick up the tab for our highest risk patients?
“Published financial data shows that Uber is losing more money than any startup in history and that its ability to capture customers and drivers from incumbent operators is entirely due to $2 billion in annual investor subsidies. The vast majority of media coverage presumes Uber is following the path of prominent digitally-based startups whose large initial losses transformed into strong profits within a few years.
“This presumption is contradicted by Uber’s actual financial results, which show no meaningful margin improvement through 2015 while the limited margin improvements achieved in 2016 can be entirely explained by Uber-imposed cutbacks to driver compensation. It is also contradicted by the fact that Uber lacks the major scale and network economies that allowed digitally-based startups to achieve rapid margin improvement.”
“Bloomberg also spoke with a driver that would have to pay a total of $37,200 over the course of the lease, including exercising the purchase option, for a GM Chevy Cruze that’s only valued at around $16,400. That driver pays $800 per month for his Cruze. That kind of money will buy you a BMW or a Mercedes, but of course the point is that the target driver is unable to qualify.”
“Uber’s chief ridesharing competitor Lyft has not figured out the magic formula either. Lyft was tagged with a staggering $600 million loss in 2016 because it has matched Uber’s fare cuts and also subsidized passenger fares. So the massive losses for both Uber and Lyft appear to be endemic to the ride-sharing industry, and not likely fixable unless the companies drastically raise their fares.
“Making Uber’s situation even more precarious, Kalanick’s drive to cut costs has alienated one of his most important assets—his drivers. By regularly slashing wages, including three years in a row, Uber is burning through its drivers as fast as its venture capital subsidies. Uber’s own internal numbers, as revealed in a report coauthored by Princeton economist Alan Krueger, show that about half of its drivers last only a year on the platform, clearly an unsustainable burn rate.”
Similar problems are cropping up with Amazon deliveries. As I understand they have three levels of drivers: direct employees; independent sole ownership subcontract drivers; subcontracted companies that hire their own drivers.
Incredible driver turnover from uncompensated work. That increases the expected workload on existing drivers with increased turnover and shoddy service and ‘lost’ items that Amazon guarantees to make good.
Wonderful piece by Dean Baker:
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-wrongest-profession-baker
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/9/15579654/medicaid-cuts-ahca
—–The most important part of the Republican health bill is mostly getting ignored
Don’t forget Medicaid.
“A massive expansion of the Medicaid program was one of the key pillars of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, and the AHCA rolls it back in a sneaky way. That rollback will deprive millions of vulnerable people of health insurance on its own terms if the bill is ever enacted in its current form. But the AHCA actually goes even further with Medicaid cuts — enacting broad cuts to the program’s spending that compound over time, offsetting a massive package of tax cuts for the rich.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/upshot/gop-bill-could-affect-employer-health-coverage-too.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fupshot&action=click&contentCollection=upshot®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0
—–G.O.P. Bill Could Affect Employer Health Coverage, Too
“About half of all Americans get health coverage through work. The bill would make it easier for employers to increase the amount that employees could be asked to pay in premiums, or to stop offering coverage entirely. It also has the potential to weaken rules against capping worker’s benefits or limiting how much employees can be asked to pay in deductibles or co-payments. … The possible effects on the employer health system got little attention during congressional debate.”
Why don’t all the news outlets that report the 8 billion (with a “b”) dollars Republicans offered up to help states subsidize high risk pools EMPHASIZE that this is spread over 5 years and 16 trillion (with a “t”) dollar overall health bill: one — ONE TWO-THOUSANDTHS of the overall bill to pick up the tab for our highest risk patients?
DROPPED THIS ON THE CHICAGO TRIB THIS MORNING AFTER A STORY ON UBER — as a twenty-year Chicago cabbie.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html
“Published financial data shows that Uber is losing more money than any startup in history and that its ability to capture customers and drivers from incumbent operators is entirely due to $2 billion in annual investor subsidies. The vast majority of media coverage presumes Uber is following the path of prominent digitally-based startups whose large initial losses transformed into strong profits within a few years.
“This presumption is contradicted by Uber’s actual financial results, which show no meaningful margin improvement through 2015 while the limited margin improvements achieved in 2016 can be entirely explained by Uber-imposed cutbacks to driver compensation. It is also contradicted by the fact that Uber lacks the major scale and network economies that allowed digitally-based startups to achieve rapid margin improvement.”
https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/05/uber-is-now-actively-preying-on-the-poor.aspx?source=yahoo-2-news&utm_campaign=article&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=yahoo-2-news&yptr=yahoo&ref=yfp
“Bloomberg also spoke with a driver that would have to pay a total of $37,200 over the course of the lease, including exercising the purchase option, for a GM Chevy Cruze that’s only valued at around $16,400. That driver pays $800 per month for his Cruze. That kind of money will buy you a BMW or a Mercedes, but of course the point is that the target driver is unable to qualify.”
http://prospect.org/article/uber-road-not-taken
“Uber’s chief ridesharing competitor Lyft has not figured out the magic formula either. Lyft was tagged with a staggering $600 million loss in 2016 because it has matched Uber’s fare cuts and also subsidized passenger fares. So the massive losses for both Uber and Lyft appear to be endemic to the ride-sharing industry, and not likely fixable unless the companies drastically raise their fares.
“Making Uber’s situation even more precarious, Kalanick’s drive to cut costs has alienated one of his most important assets—his drivers. By regularly slashing wages, including three years in a row, Uber is burning through its drivers as fast as its venture capital subsidies. Uber’s own internal numbers, as revealed in a report coauthored by Princeton economist Alan Krueger, show that about half of its drivers last only a year on the platform, clearly an unsustainable burn rate.”
Similar problems are cropping up with Amazon deliveries. As I understand they have three levels of drivers: direct employees; independent sole ownership subcontract drivers; subcontracted companies that hire their own drivers.
Incredible driver turnover from uncompensated work. That increases the expected workload on existing drivers with increased turnover and shoddy service and ‘lost’ items that Amazon guarantees to make good.
Growth pain but it is catching up on the profits.
Busy news day. It seems Allan Meltzer died Monday.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/federal-reserve-expert-allan-meltzer-died-47309661
Plus the Comey madness.