121–130 of 357 posts
I wonder if a simple change to Uber's app would fix all this -- let drivers set their own rates, and customers could pick from a number of drivers nearby based on how close they are, and what rate they charge. And/or let customers put out a bid for the rate they want to pay, then any driver can accept that bid and get the fare. That way drivers could be more legally considered contractors (they set their own rates),…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) Every state also has unique requirements for car insurance. 2) Federal law has in fact controlled many aspects of health insurance plans, particularly employer-sponsored health plans, for decades. The elephant in the room is ERISA, passed 1974, but of course there's also Obamacare.
Federal law has set a minimum for car insurance, I think, might be per state (I think you have to have a minimum of liability). Many states have requirements that exceed the Federal min. They don't contradict it, but require extra, which so far has been held to be fine. I don't know the full history about why you cant buy health insurance across state lines, but I think it's a blend of different state's regulations a…
The Affordable Care Act's requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Federation_of_Indepen...
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They also, obviously, set their own hours and choose at any time to work or not work.
Per https://legal.uncc.edu/legal-topics/contracts/contract-check... "If the worker is not integrated into the institution's operations and the right of control is not obviously apparent (no training, no work hours, no reports), you are reasonably safe as long as the relationship is short-term and the independent contractor has other customers." I would say "integrated into the institution's operations" is the very de…
Drivers as a group are integrated into Uber's operations, but an individual driver is not. Nothing at Uber depends on a certain driver being available. Contrast that with most non-contracting jobs where operations depend on an employee being at work and doing their job.
Obviously there is no right of control of Uber drivers. They can choose to accept a contract or not, with no repercussions if they choose not to accept. The fact that the contract has clearly defined terms such as who to pick up, where to go, etc. does not mean the driver isn't contracting (since doing a job that has clear terms is the definition of contracting...).
Other than the 'short-term' aspect, Uber drivers are pretty clearly contractors by that definition.
It’s sad that the idea of people being able to get by and live a comfortable life without the benefits from a full time job is so far outside the Overton window that it’s not even mentioned in these conversations. That seems like such an obviously better outcome for everyone - what if we got rid of healthcare benefits and other types of favorable tax treatment that are tied to full time employment so that everyone is…
1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines. 2. Employers start giving their employees the money they pay on their behalf. 3. People shop for the health insurance they want/need. In a year, every other advertisement on TV would be for health insurance, like it is with car insurance now.
Also, you do realize that this proposed solution essentially disempowers state governments from being responsive to citizen concerns about insurance policy/practice -- if a state can't control who sells in their state, then the only government shaping insurance policy is national.
Bonus points if you can address how these locales address the issue that health insurance is a weird good from a market perspective -- the more an individual needs it, the less an insurer probably wants to sell it to them, certainly for an averaged risk pool premium.
I totally want to see insurance decoupled from employment, but as far as I can tell, the state line thing isn't an analysis, it's just a mantra that was/is frequently dropped into the discussion without explanation or support.
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States with more people and costs usually have more coverage requirements. You don’t want insurance to be like banking where banks domicile in “friendly” places like Delaware and South Dakota. Health insurance is awful enough. Republicans want this so that high cost, low benefit plans can be hocked to less sophisticated people. The more right wing folks also like shared responsibility pools where the members are the…
Are Republicans basically evil?
Here in Australia, most drivers seem to be using several other apps (Didi, Ola, etc) at the same time as Uber. So in that sense, they are a contractor in my eyes.
They also, obviously, set their own hours and choose at any time to work or not work.
On the employee side: a driver can not delegate work, is paid per activity, takes no commercial risk, has no control over how they do their work and are not operating independently. On the contractor side: The driver supplies most of the equipment (that's if you don't count the massive server side investment as equipment).
So far tax purposes at least uber drivers are employees, so the question is why did the ATO give them an ABN in the first place?
Having been an Uber /Lyft driver I can't even fathom what it would mean for a driver to be an employee with expenses paid. Is the driver driving a gas guzzling F250 entitled to a higher reimbursement for cost of driving than me driving a Honda insight?
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-standard-mileage-rat...
It’s sad that the idea of people being able to get by and live a comfortable life without the benefits from a full time job is so far outside the Overton window that it’s not even mentioned in these conversations. That seems like such an obviously better outcome for everyone - what if we got rid of healthcare benefits and other types of favorable tax treatment that are tied to full time employment so that everyone is…
1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines. 2. Employers start giving their employees the money they pay on their behalf. 3. People shop for the health insurance they want/need. In a year, every other advertisement on TV would be for health insurance, like it is with car insurance now.
Any plan which doesn’t minimize or zero out the pool of uninsured Americans does nothing but drive up the cost of health care, and in turn the cost of insurance for everyone else, in a vicious circle. That’s the whole point of the last 30+ years of never ending ideas about what to do about health care in America. The whole point is to break that cycle, not even getting in to second order effects like exploding Medicare costs or actual public health issues.
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When you charge far less than the actual cost of service you're going to get demand that does not reflect the actual market, hence not true "true" supply and demand. If I was selling dollar bills for 50 cents I would sell a lot of dollars bills. We've seen this before it's called Groupon. A key difference between Uber and Groupon is there are more drivers to con then there are businesses. Uber is losing billions doll…
If you are saying that venture capitalists and naive investors are paying for part of my ride each time I take an Uber why wouldn’t I want to get as many subsidized rides in as I can before they go broke? How am I as a consumer not gaining every time this happens?
Uber is basically a legal Ponzi scheme.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you charge far less than the actual cost of service you're going to get demand that does not reflect the actual market, hence not true "true" supply and demand. If I was selling dollar bills for 50 cents I would sell a lot of dollars bills. We've seen this before it's called Groupon. A key difference between Uber and Groupon is there are more drivers to con then there are businesses. Uber is losing billions doll…
If you are saying that venture capitalists and naive investors are paying for part of my ride each time I take an Uber why wouldn’t I want to get as many subsidized rides in as I can before they go broke? How am I as a consumer not gaining every time this happens?