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

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.

Comments

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

Although, this time, it's being used for good!

Amazon is looking to get into the health-care business, right? So, they're trying to build a user-base among those who most struggle with health care: The old and poor. Amazon is embracing the Medicaid program within its current domain of expertise; next, Amazon will extend its expertise to include health care management; then, Amazon will work with governments to extinguish the public program, and we can be free once and for all from the ineptitude of governmental control.

From the description, it looks like Amazon might have the same idea for the other aspects of the welfare state. Why bother challenging the governmental programs when you can just infiltrate and then subsume them? Bezos is a genius.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

Love how this exact comment was posted to SoylentNews...
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/03/07/2147234

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[jellomizer]

And I thought my gut instinct to the article was right leaning.
That poor people make poor money choices, so giving medicaid patients (given to struggling people) they will spend more on things that do not have a long term value, trinkets that will give an immediate satisfaction, vs long term pleasure. Is this a gross stereotype? Yes, yes it is. However it is a normal trend that could be taken advantage of. Because on the more altruistic view of this. These people may not be able to have ready transport to the city for shopping, or to the local Bigbox Mart, and products such as cleaning supplies, and personal hygiene products are often not covered by welfare programs. So services such as free shipping of such products is probably a strong benefit.

 

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

It would make more sense if the government just picked up the price of a Prime membership for anyone at or below the poverty line. It would also allow financially challenged people to shop reasonably at Whole Foods, improving their diet of Big Macs and probably saving money on healthcare and diabetes in the long run.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[ArtemaOne]

So you're buying a hospital visit for the flu, would you like to add an additional warranty for $10?

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

>implying people make good decisions
People on government assistance are there precisely because they can't make good decisions. McDonald's immediate gratification or reasonably-priced Whole Foods (HA!) for better meals you have to cook?

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[b0s0z0ku]

If they're working 12 hours a day on their feet at $7.50/hr, they might be too fucking tired to shop or cook. Mickey Dee's might be less of a choice, more of a necessity so they don't pass out. Assuming they have a working stove and fridge, even.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[bobstreo]

Although, this time, it's being used for good!

Amazon is looking to get into the health-care business, right? So, they're trying to build a user-base among those who most struggle with health care: The old and poor. Amazon is embracing the Medicaid program within its current domain of expertise; next, Amazon will extend its expertise to include health care management; then, Amazon will work with governments to extinguish the public program, and we can be free once and for all from the ineptitude of governmental control.

From the description, it looks like Amazon might have the same idea for the other aspects of the welfare state. Why bother challenging the governmental programs when you can just infiltrate and then subsume them? Bezos is a genius.

I think what you meant to say is that Amazon is working on a medical support and delivery program, and is even making money collecting information on future clients who will be able to pay for medical services via their Medicaid EBT information. A win-win for Amazon.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're buying a hospital visit for the flu, would you like to add an additional warranty for $10?

Actually, sounds like a good deal - just depends what the warranty terms are. You're pre-paying for a follow up visit.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[PolygamousRanchKid]

That poor people make poor money choices, so giving medicaid patients (given to struggling people) they will spend more on things that do not have a long term value, trinkets that will give an immediate satisfaction, vs long term pleasure. Is this a gross stereotype? Yes, yes it is.

Actually, no it is not. $100 on an EBT card will get you $50-$60 cash on the black market . . . which you can spend on whatever you want.

The mere existence of this thriving market indicates . . . well . . . that lots of folks are doing it.

A more interesting question . . . is if Amazon permits or assists in such EBT card hanky-panky. Can you spend money from your EBT card, that is meant for diapers, to pay for tech junk . . . ?

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[MitchDev]

So I work hard and am not on public assistance, and Amazon wants to punish me with higher prices for that?

I call bullshit

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

To fix US health care is easy. Just stop peoples from doing triple by-pass the 4th times, or unlimited supply of narcan. Frankly, the drug company should sell their pain killer with free supply of narcan for life.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[bluefoxlucid]

Probably not. You have to charge EBT for a qualified good. There are technical barriers to buying random stuff, and circumvention by a merchant will get regulatory enforcement up your ass immediately.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Curunir_wolf]

So, they're trying to build a user-base among those who most struggle with health care: The old and poor.

They offer the discount for SNAP and medicaid folks, not for seniors. So your premise is flawed. Where is my old people discount?

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[b0s0z0ku]

The merchant needn't be involved. Buy the good, resell for cash at 50% discount immediately to someone outside the store.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[b0s0z0ku]

Using Amazon and having to wait for shipping/deal with mis-delivered stuff is punishment in itself. I'm not a hermit, I prefer brick-n-mortar when possible.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[bluefoxlucid]

I agree that welfare is sort of unfair, what with both requiring you to have low income and refusing to provide any benefit until you have run down your liquid assets (you have to burn through your life's savings first), while also having you pay taxes in.

As such, I have developed a new program which we can implement without raising taxes. This program stabilizes Social Security (permanently), creates a new baseline for minimum wage ($9.75 in 2024, which compounds with the Dividend benefit to equate to a $15.11/hr wage), and pays out to all adults. It's funded by a FICA tax on all income (corporate and personal), so it grows with every productivity growth, thus faster than COLA.

Under this program, middle-income households actually receive a benefit--and in total this comes out to be a reduction in tax burden, compared with today. The tax load is still higher than just cutting the program entirely; it only reduces the cost today, and pays back at least part of your tax obligation in the form of a benefit. Thus you benefit from the participation, immediately.

Lifting up the lowest-income households reduces their need for assistance, which helps to lower the cost of public assistance programs and improve their reach. We can tune them to reach more children in low-income households, or reduce our deficits, or even reduce taxes further. The increased buying power of lower- and middle-income households creates jobs, as well--especially in more-impoverished areas--which further lifts people from poverty and gets them off assistance, freeing up Federal, State, and Local funds for economic development and other programs of benefit to the greater community.

Besides stabilizing households and reducing the tax burden, reducing the utilization of public assistance should also reduce the number of discounted Amazon Prime subscriptions, thus allowing Amazon to charge a lower base rate.

It's amazing what the careful application of well-regulated capitalism can do.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that Amazon would be at a comparative disadvantage in playing black marketeer. You don't run an operation of their size without keeping accurate records, otherwise various flavors of fraud not in your favor or sheer inefficiency and confusion would cause things to grind to a halt; and they are a large, obvious, target with a lot to lose if caught.

Now, will their UI make it super easy(or just default to) auto-apply EBT to eligible items in the cart and use a presentation of the result very similar to what you would see if gift cards/rebates/etc. covered those items to give you a feeling of having 'saved' and encourage you to feel that you can afford to add an extra widget or two? That seems much more likely.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[cayenne8]

It would make more sense if the government just picked up the price of a Prime membership for anyone at or below the poverty line.

/me thumbs through his copy of the US Constitution, looking for the "right to Amazon Prime assistance"....and the enumerated responsibilities of the Feds to cover this....hmmm

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

You wanted nibbers ... you got nibber parasites. EOF.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I think the chip on your shoulder is warping your perspective. Amazon isn't interested in punishment or your sense of victimized moral superiority.

It's an economic commonplace that price discrimination is in the seller's interest if they can accurately assess the willingness to pay and demand elasticity of their various customers. Doing so perfectly is generally impossible; but more and less granular attempts market segmentation are ubiquitous.

Here, Amazon has a very convenient market segmentation signal neatly implemented for them: a collection of poor customers, presumably less likely to purchase Prime at full price, with eligibility standards and enforcement provided by the state or the feds; and (at least in the case of WIC EBT, not sure about medicaid) a purchasing mechanism built in that is quite similar to other payment cards in terms of processing. What's not to like, from Amazon's perspective?

Should we establish a Department of Virtuous Labor to enact regulations to prevent market actors from doing things, even voluntarily and in their economic interests, that might result in lower prices for filthy poors, to avoid this moral outrage?

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

Old people discount is just age discrimination.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[bluefoxlucid]

Yes, but that happens anywhere you go.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[MightyYar]

Actual scheme I've encountered in real life:
1. Get "government cheese" (any kind of food from government assistance).
2. Feed government cheese to white rats.
3. Sell white rats to labs.
4. Profit!

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[MitchDev]

Fuck you too

Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Type44Q]

Confusion leading to frustration and anger... senility? Syphilis? (Statistically unlikely...) Perhaps too much caffeine+HFCS??

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in my area, our Board of Supervisors was quoted in their meeting minutes that "It is not worth creating jobs here. You're better off on the welfare system."

There are a ton of working poor people on the medicaid/snap programs. Stereotypes change, maybe everyone's opinion should too.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[cayenne8]

Using Amazon and having to wait for shipping/deal with mis-delivered stuff is punishment in itself. I'm not a hermit, I prefer brick-n-mortar when possible.

Hmm...I've had pretty much nothing but GREAT experiences with Amazon.

I find what I want, it gets shipped to me in 2 days and prices are usually better than I find locally.

And even with amazon charging sales tax....if you find a 3rd party on Amazon selling it, you usually get same shipping and no charge of sales tax which is nice.

Before Amazon started collecting sales tax, it was REALLY a great deal, especially on large ticket items.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

Free medi-aid, free services, free android.....and no need to look for a job. (Google it)

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

People on government assistance are there precisely because they can't make good decisions.

Bullshit!

I'm on Medicaid/Medicare because I'm physically disabled. Was it some bad decision like getting drunk and crashing a car?

No. I was struck by a car driven by a drunk illegal alien who of course had no insurance (or license) who simply skipped back across the border, leaving me to deal with life-changing injuries.

So fuck you and your smug sense of superiority. I guess we US citizens will have to start dealing with illegal aliens one 5.56 NATO round at a time until the body count convinces them to stay where they're at.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[WaffleMonster]

So I work hard and am not on public assistance, and Amazon wants to punish me with higher prices for that?

I call bullshit

Screw Amazon. Walmart.com has 2 day free shipping /w ZERO membership dues.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[MitchDev]

Most of the time they are pretty fast with the shipping like that

We've had a few times where Walmart took a week longer than that on shipping

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon, JPMC, and Berkshire are trying to drive down healthcare costs for THEIR EMPLOYEES first and foremost. If they happen to come up with a solution that works for them (a big "IF"), only then will they consider scaling it out.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

Having come from California where there are more illegals than legitimate citizens I sympathize with your plight. However your position is really the exception rather than the rule. I personally know of whole communities where illegals teach other illegals how to abuse our system for fun and profit. I've also witnessed folks who are on welfare smoking crack and being a general burden on society as well acting as though they're entitled to it. Wondering how Amazon plans to distinguish between those who really need help and those who are just unwilling to help themselves.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

You, Sir or Ma'am, are an asshole.

Clearly you do not understand poor. Sure, SOME poor people make bad decisions, just like SOME wealthy people and everyone in between. BUT recent research shows that wealth distribution has more to do with LUCK than with anything else.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[pnutjam]

Walmart doesn't ship milk. Although the Amazon listings for Milk are mostly scammy looking. Walmart has much better prices on powdered milk and shelf stable milk products.

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[drsquare]

Yeah those poor ill people get all the breaks. What is this shit?

More goodies for slackers.

[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.

Re:More goodies for slackers.

[Gavagai80]

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:More goodies for slackers.

[b0s0z0ku]

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.

Discrimination

[The123king]

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"

Re:Discrimination

[drinkypoo]

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

[Gavagai80]

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.

Re:Discrimination

[Anonymous Coward]

This. It's a type of market segmentation, and little more.

Re:Discrimination

[Applehu Akbar]

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.

Re:Discrimination

[b0s0z0ku]

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

Re:Discrimination

[dabadab]

Actually it's called price discrimination and is an ages-old pricing strategy.

Thanks Amazon

[110010001000]

$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.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[TFlan91]

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

Re:Thanks Amazon

[jellomizer]

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,

Re:Thanks Amazon

[110010001000]

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

Re:Thanks Amazon

[TFlan91]

Poor people, people on medicaid, elect to pay monthly as it's cheaper in the short run and that is the biggest motivator.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[Trailer Trash]

Poor people, people on medicaid, elect to pay monthly as it's cheaper in the short run and that is the biggest motivator.

Right. One of the main reasons people are "poor" in the US is that they make bad money choices like this.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[DontBeAMoran]

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

Re:Thanks Amazon

[b0s0z0ku]

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.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

How many normal smart people have a 30 year mortgage on their house? Ain't necessarily those terrible poor people making really stupid money decisions.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[bluefoxlucid]

Poor people actually are pretty good at getting by on budgets even I can't manage. Bear in mind I make $77k and I only spend 1/3 of it. My car broke and I bought a motorcycle (and then a $12k Volt), so I've been diverting a lot to cleaning up my finances while running a Congressional campaign out of pocket, and I've still stacked up $5,000 in my bank accounts, paid off a $5,000 credit card, and started knocking down another credit card, before my tax refunds landed.

I actually have enough cash on hand to simply pay off my credit cards or--get this--my car loan.

That's from my day job, not from campaign contributions. I need to do some fundraising: I have a $4,000 loan (from my personal funds) that I can pay back to myself when my campaign can run stably from voter contributions. Unlike "self-funded" millionaires, I want to go into office with zero loan balance so rich folks (worth $10,800 by earmarking for my Primary and General campaigns) and PACs (worth $20,000) can't line my pockets by donating to my campaign.

People in the US are poor because we need five astronauts and 50,000,000 grocery baggers and burger flippers. I live in a collapsed industry city that doesn't have the jobs to support the population, and will only get them if money starts flowing into the city from outside.

When a McDonalds or Target opens here, they take money from inside and send it out to suppliers and Corporate HQs, reducing the number of jobs in the city (yes, opening a McDonalds destroys jobs); to create jobs, we need money from government assistance (yep!), tourism, and brewery exports--stuff that takes money from outside and infuses it into our local economy, diffusing through wages and creating consumer buying power, and thus the demand (and revenue streams) to require and pay employees (which, when flowing through, allows us to have nice things like McDonalds, since there's a cash inflow to counterbalance the cash outflow).

Live the macroeconomy.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[110010001000]

No they don't. Being poor doesn't mean you are stupid. Plenty of people with money are stupid. You are stupid if you pay per month. No offense. You would be better off paying interest on a credit card than pay per month.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[b0s0z0ku]

Unless you don't need the service every month. Drop, re-up, drop, re-up, repeat.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[radarskiy]

"better off paying interest on a credit card"

You have assumed there is a credit card.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[radarskiy]

You have assumed availability of $99 up front.

You would have to defer the monthly price for 8 months to accumulate enough for the yearly price BUT you also have to account for any additional cost from any substitutes for Prime used in the meantime.If the total price for substitutes costs you more than 3.5 times the monthly price you will never accumulate the lump sum.

If you are not using any substitutes, then there's no reason to get yearly or monthly Prime at all.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[radarskiy]

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

Re:Thanks Amazon

[UsuallyReasonable]

If you think a 30 year mortgage at prevailing interest rates is stupid, you are in dire need of a math lesson. Real interest rates are in the 2% range, and appreciation will probably run much more than that. In addition, mortgage interest is deductible.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

How many normal smart people have a 30 year mortgage on their house?

Actually intending to take 30 years to pay off a 30 year mortgage is a questionable strategy at best given your essentially paying back twice what you borrowed.

However simply seeking a 30 year loan intending to pay it off much sooner especially where market conditions are such that little difference exists between loan term and interest rate has advantages. It offers more flexibility in what you must pay to hedge against unexpected conditions such as loss of a job or unanticipated expenses.

Re:Thanks Amazon

[pnutjam]

Yeah, my town is chasing things like IKIA, "destination dining", and entertainent like Top Golf. None of these contribute significantly to the city. One article I've read even said something about them expecting an influx of workers because these aren't jobs that pay enough for people in the community.

None of these contribute to the community beyond a "look at us", and they cost big in taxes.
I think it's because the local government is mostly stacked with developer types. The bill is going to come due in a decade or so, the subdivisions we annexed to increase our population and become a city will also drain our tax base.

We'll see how it turns out, but I'm not optimistic.

Same story, same comment. WTF did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what your point is.

Re:Same story, same comment. WTF did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not entirely sure what yours is.

Re: Same story, same comment. WTF did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

"2-day shipping" doesn't mean what you think it means.

More victi^H^H^H^H customers

[Anonymous Coward]

For Alexa to laugh at.

Not sure what to think of this

[mysidia]

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 participation in a government program ---- technically the government is NOT to allow their programs to be used in such manner.

Re:Not sure what to think of this

[b0s0z0ku]

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

Re:Not sure what to think of this

[Ol Olsoc]

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:Not sure what to think of this

[Anonymous Coward]

Discriminatory, like:

US tax brackets
Citizenship
House pricing
Auto insurance
Medical insurance
Employee discounts
FD/PD discounts
Student discounts
Sports brackets
Private clubs
Medicaid
EBT
University acceptance
Private Hollywood party invites
The armed forces
Monogamous relationships

If you don't like it use your RIGHT to discriminate and don't purchase Amazons services

Re:Not sure what to think of this

[Nidi62]

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.

Re:Not sure what to think of this

[Anonymous Coward]

Most poor people aren't ordering random things off Amazon. They use physical stores. The air has free music and TV. The library has free music, TV, moves, books, audiobooks, artwork, and educational classes. My parent's library has more TV/movies than Netflix and they're all free. Some can be streamed.

Keep in mind the Prime items are more expensive. That free shipping isn't free nor built into the price of the subscription. It's built into the price of the products. I'm an online reseller. We always do free shipping and we always mark up the price to the max cross country shipping cost. Everyone I know who offers free shipping does the same.

Re:Not sure what to think of this

[drsquare]

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.

Waiting for cayenne8 or roman_mir

[Anonymous Coward]

Waiting for cayenne8 or roman_mir to start frothing at the mouth over this.

Re:Waiting for cayenne8 or roman_mir

[Anonymous Coward]

They're busy frothing from their naughty bits. It's mating season.

Re:Pump ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that smelly? Do you war gloves?

Jeffrey Preston Bezos for President ! ! !

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to vote for a Santa Claus,
make if one with lots of free gifts.

Walmart.com has a better deal

[WaffleMonster]

2 day shipping for $0 monthly cost for everyone.

How many Mediaid recipients can even afford that?

[Anonymous Coward]

To get on Medicaid you have to spend down all your assets to practically nothing. To get into a Medicaid nursing home you have to give them all your income except some $40 a month. How can somebody like that pay $5.99 a month for Amazon Prime, much less buy anything on it?

Re:How many Mediaid recipients can even afford tha

[b0s0z0ku]

Not in Medicaid-expansion states -- there's no asset test, only income below 133% of poverty line.

Without cable, how do you connect to the Internet?

[tepples]

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.

Who can afford to move to such a state?

[tepples]

To get on Medicaid you have to either A. afford to move to a Medicaid-expansion state or B. spend down all your assets to practically nothing.