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Amazon Launches a Low-Cost Version of Prime For Medicaid Recipients (techcrunch.com) 88

Posted by BeauHD from the budget-friendly dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: 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 $12.99 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). Now that same benefit is arriving for recipients of Medicaid, the public assistance program providing medical coverage to low-income Americans. To qualify for the discount, customers must have a valid EBT or Medicaid card, the retailer says.
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Amazon Launches a Low-Cost Version of Prime For Medicaid Recipients More

Amazon Launches a Low-Cost Version of Prime For Medicaid Recipients

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  • More goodies for slackers. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    âoeAnyone with an entire cardâ is way more than Medicaid. Itâ(TM)s also the bums that donâ(TM)t work because they canâ(TM)t find a job they âoelikeâ.

    The folks that use the entire for food and still have cash for lotto tickets and cigarettes. Great move amazon. Punish the working class by giving special treatment to the bum class.

    • At least we can type coherently.

      At any rate, Amazon is offering the discount because it makes business sense. Poor people don't order 10 packages a month (I probably make 4 orders a year), so the free shipping costs Amazon a lot less than it does with a wealthy customer.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 )
      These days, anyone under 133% of poverty level in Medicaid-expansion states is offered the benefit, regardless of assets. It's a bizarre system -- you could own a business, not profit for one year, own a million-dollar house, and still be offered Medicaid as your only coverage if you buy through an ACA exchange.
  • All this is, is discrimination dressed up as assistance.What if i live in the UK and am on benefits. Do i get a discount? What if i have a delibitating terminal disease? How about if i'm a paraplegic? It's basically a case of "you don't get a discount because you're not poor enough and live in the wrong country"

    • It's basically a case of "you don't get a discount because you're not poor enough and live in the wrong country"

      You have the NHS. Why don't you just shut your whine-hole?

    • Re:Discrimination (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Gavagai80 ( 1275204 ) on Thursday March 08, 2018 @08:25AM (#56226689) Homepage

      It's simply "here's a group of people we can be sure aren't willing to pay our full price, so we'll offer them a lower price and hope some buy." They don't have to offer the lower price to everyone who can't afford their full price, because this isn't a charity, it's business strategy.

    • All this is, is discrimination dressed up as assistance.What if i live in the UK and am on benefits. Do i get a discount? What if i have a delibitating terminal disease? How about if i'm a paraplegic? It's basically a case of "you don't get a discount because you're not poor enough and live in the wrong country"

      And you're also being discriminated against because you don't live in that one place whedre Amazon is running a checkout-free test store.

    • Is this any more discriminatory than (say) a student discount in a museum?

  • Thanks Amazon (Score:3)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday March 08, 2018 @08:21AM (#56226677) Homepage Journal
    $6x12 = $72. That saves me $27 a year. You are spending those billions in tax savings wisely! See THIS is what trickle down economics looks like! It trickled all over me.

    • It's a savings of $84, that piss stream had a few drops left, you just forgot to shake.

    • I am not following your math?
      12.99*12 = 155.88
      5.99*12 = 71.88
      155.88-71.88 = 84

      Then there are saving in its services such as free shipping. Saving having to travel by car (Which is expensive) to purchase products. Having to deal with business hours shopping,

      • Amazon Prime is $99 per year. No one pays per month (if they are smart).

        • No one pays per month if they are smart and are able to make a single $99 payment.

          • Unless they use Amazon rarely, get Crime (I mean Prime) for a month, then cancel the fuckin thing till next time. I live in an area with stores and brick-n-mortar bookstores. I use Amazon maybe 2-3x a year.

    • $27 times 73.5 million Medicaid recipients projected for 2017 = $1.985 billion

  • More victi^H^H^H^H customers (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    For Alexa to laugh at.

  • It's clearly no charity.... this is Discriminatory pricing plain and simple.
    Attempting to encourage people who probably shouldn't be spending what little money they have on
    entertainment to buy a service they probably should not be buying.

    If it were for "charity", they'd be giving it away at $0.... instead they're still tryiing to Profit, and people with more income pay them more, so it's a form of unfair pricing for services, AND they're on dangerous ground to be discriminating based on participat

    • What if it gives them access to more non-sugary, non-processed foods than their local convenience store does?

    • It's clearly no charity.... this is Discriminatory pricing plain and simple.

      No kidding? Of course it is discriminatory. Then again, so is special discounts/pricing for Veterans, NRA members, senior citizens, educators, and other groups.

      It's just people on Medicaid, so already they are considered evil and money grubbing terrible entitled people.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      If it were for "charity", they'd be giving it away at $0.... instead they're still tryiing to Profit,

      2 shipments a month on Prime at the discounted rate and they've probably reached that $5.99 in free shipping alone. At the same time the Prime owner gets free music, free TV shows/movies(so less money they "need" to spend on cable), and even some free ebooks. The increased marketshare is probably more important to Amazon than the extra $6 a month in Prime fees.

      • At the same time the Prime owner gets free music, free TV shows/movies(so less money they "need" to spend on cable)

        Without cable, how does the Prime subscriber connect to the Internet in the first place, especially people who live outside the service footprint of fiber? If you meant a subscription to cable Internet without TV, consider that many pay TV subscribers subscribe to pay TV solely because the cable company charges less for a bundle of home Internet and basic TV service than for home Internet alone.

    • It's clearly no charity.... this is Discriminatory pricing plain and simple.
      Attempting to encourage people who probably shouldn't be spending what little money they have on
      entertainment to buy a service they probably should not be buying.

      Not exactly sure what your point is, unless you think ill people should not have entertainment.

  • 2 day shipping for $0 monthly cost for everyone.

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