Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

lyft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 1001 posts

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#311

Post by dumbfoundded »

lhorie wrote: post #284
compycom wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber and Lyft are voluntarily suspending operations to make a political point; they are the ones kicking the little guy while they're down. The fact that these companies can spend 100 million to dismantle the outcome of the political process shows how little power the California government actually has.

I was under the impression they're planning on suspending operations because it would be illegal for drivers to operate as contractors come tomorrow. Their political stance is manifested in prop 22, but the shutdown is for compliance w/ the law.

From my understanding, the shutdown is to avoid classifying drivers as employees. Nothing has to change except Uber/Lyft having to pay payroll taxes and provide benefits for drivers working full time hours. It has nothing to do with flexibility. It's about a shifting tax burden. This shift may make the business model unprofitable without significantly raising prices.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#312

Post by darkengine »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #257
ciarannolan wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "liberal states bad" trope has popped up on conservative media in the last year or so, so you'll see a lot more of it on places like HN.

Yeah, pretty much all of the best state economies are extremely liberal (1). I think the anti-tax sentiment on HN is from people who make a lot of money and then realize they have to pay taxes. They attribute their success entirely to themselves and then whine about giving anything back to the environment that enabled them. California certainly has giant problems but don't let it distract you from the big picture. (1…

I'd like to see the p-value on states' political lean vs the size of their economy. Looking at the top 10 state economies on your list, 3 are swing states and 3 are red states, leaving only 4 (far from "pretty much all") as blue states. Even looking 10 states further down, into the top 20, adds 5 red states, 3 swing states, and only 2 blue states.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#313

Post by Johnny555 »

CodeMage wrote: post #283
Johnny555 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, voters in the US want to give people education, healthcare, and unemployment (or basic income-ish) benefited Voters in the US are already paying for healthcare for all, plus they are paying extra to support an entire healthcare insurance industry. The USA doesn't (generally) let people die if they can't afford healthcare (people may be driven into bankruptcy, but they won't be left to die), so those costs are al…

> Voters in the US are already paying for healthcare for all I've been living in the US for almost 7 years, and this is news to me. As far as I understand, Medicare only applies to people who are 65+ years old, and Medicaid only applies to families with certain income (relative to family size). What did I miss? > The USA doesn't (generally) let people die if they can't afford healthcare (people may be driven into ban…

Anyone in the USA can walk into an emergency room to get treatment - the public is paying for that through high hospital fees and direct subsidies.

Instead of waiting for someone with the flu to develop pneumonia and go to the ER because he can't breath, it'd be much cheaper to subsidize his visit to a primary care physician that he can go to before he needs a hospital.

To relate a personal experience, I have a relative that's had drug addiction problems all her life -- a few years back she had a cold or flu, couldn't afford to see a doctor so tried to ride it out at home, fortunately, she called her mom and told her how sick she was. When she didn't respond to the phone the next day, her parents drove across the state to check on her, found her near comatose and called 911. She had some bacterial pneumonia and almost died, she spent 10 days in the hospital, 5 of those days were in the ICU, intubated and in an induced coma. Because she was working and had some moderate income, she had lost her eligibility for state subsidized medical insurance. After taking 6 weeks off work to recover, she of course, lost her job, then she qualified for health care coverage and state disability payments.

The total hospital bill was over $300,000. Since she had no income or assets, the hospital wrote off the entire bill and absorbed the charges.

All of this because the public didn't want to pay $100 for her to see a doctor and get some antibiotics.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#314

Post by lotsofpulp »

BTCOG wrote: post #285
HumblyTossed wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't helped that people still view getting a job "with benefits" as some kind of badge of honor. This leads to a not small amount of people feeling that if you don't have a job "with benefits" you don't deserve any.

I love paying $1,300 a month for my health benefits I use a few times a year. What a great badge of honor. Oh, but wait, there's more! I can also pay hundreds of dollars out of my pocket at each visit to a clinic or dentist!

You pay extra when you're younger to pay for older people's healthcare. The ACA restricted health insurance premiums for older, costlier people as a multiple of the ideal 21 to 24 year old healthy person. NJ has a good pdf showing how premiums are calculated.

https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra...

If you see at the bottom, a 60 year old's age rating factor is 2.714 times a 21 year old's. Which means their premium can't exceed 2.714 times a 21 year old. Obviously a 60 year old uses far more healthcare than 2.7 times the healthcare a 21 year old uses, so effectively it's a tax on the 21 year old to pay for the 60 year old's healthcare.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#315

Post by [deleted] »

wlesieutre wrote: post #227
Androider wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US we pay hundreds of dollars in monthly medical premiums, thousands in deductibles per year, and still need to live in fear of surprise bankruptcy-level bills arriving if god forbid you collapse and need an emergency procedure at the closest out-of-network facility. Absolute insanity. Yet changing this at a fundamental level is somehow considered radical, nothing we can do etc., except what every other wester…

Don't forget how much higher your car insurance is because if you get in an accident it needs to cover someone else's $200,000 medical bills

[deleted]

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#316

Post by xienze »

manigandham wrote: post #16
Reedx wrote: post #11

> Instead, what Sacramento politicians are pushing is an employment model that 4 out of 5 drivers don’t support. Is that stat accurate? If so, what is the argument for imposing a model that the vast majority of drivers don't support?

100% of the thousands of Uber drivers I've talked to over the past 8 years have said work flexibility is their greatest advantage. Many of them already have other commitments and drive for extra income. If they wanted a FT driving job, they would've gotten one.

> Many of them already have other commitments and drive for extra income.

Exactly, why are so many people forgetting this aspect of ridesharing? The whole point is that you can pick it up and put it down whenever you want for a little extra cash. VERY early on people were able to make a killing doing Uber and that gave others a false impression that this was somehow a viable full time job. It's been years and years since it made economic sense to do Uber on a fulltime basis. Giving drivers benefits isn't going to change the effective hourly rate of $7/hr or whatever it's been for a while.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#317

Post by manigandham »

lm28469 wrote: post #215
manigandham wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic worker rights? Have you ever worked as an independent contractor? What rights are you specifically talking about? People who have no idea or experience of others but want to remove their freedom and tell them what's best for them is far more insidious and dangerous.

> People who have no idea or experience of others but want to That's the basis of society, people who have a better overall views of things decide for you all the time, and it should be like that. What's the opposite ? Private for profit companies deciding what's better for "you" ? That's what Uber and Amazon are trying to do and that's why they lose dozens of court cases about workers rights all over the world. I do…

The issue is that people making these laws do not have a better overall view of things. When you go against the majority because you personally think something without experience or evidence, that's a major problem.

When did I make the point that "it's not as bad as X"? Both full-time driving jobs and freelance ride-sharing exist. Drivers can already choose what works for them, and many choose ride-sharing for the flexibility it offers and because it's what works in addition to their prior commitments.

Why do you want to take away that opportunity or think that people are incapable of making that choice for themselves?

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#318

Post by lhorie »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #72

Yes, voters in the US want to give people education, healthcare, and unemployment (or basic income-ish) benefits. Voters in the US also don’t want to pay for any of this. Hence, the politicians that get elected are ones that give people education via student loans, and healthcare/unemployment benefits tied to employer/employment status. Those politicians get to claim they helped people, and they get to claim they kep…

Is it really a matter of whether voters want to pay taxes, though? Consider that in California (US), if you make 100k, you pay an avg tax rate of ~29% (marginal 41%), vs in Ontario (Canada), you pay an avg tax rate of ~28% (marginal 43%). At a glance, these look like fairly comparable tax rates.

But Ontario has free public healthcare based on residence status, while Cali doesn't. So a better question might be what is it that US taxes are paying for that are so important (but that the neighbor in the north can do without just fine) that it can't afford healthcare instead?

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#319

Post by berbec »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #287
Androider wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US we pay hundreds of dollars in monthly medical premiums, thousands in deductibles per year, and still need to live in fear of surprise bankruptcy-level bills arriving if god forbid you collapse and need an emergency procedure at the closest out-of-network facility. Absolute insanity. Yet changing this at a fundamental level is somehow considered radical, nothing we can do etc., except what every other wester…

> ... and still need to live in fear of surprise bankruptcy-level bills arriving if god forbid you collapse and need an emergency procedure at the closest out-of-network facility. I don't know why this isn't illegal. You can go from living comfortably to living in poverty even though you held up your end of the contract except for that last time when you were not even conscious.

Imagine this at mcdonalds:

It'd like a burger OK, here it is. What is the charge? I'm not sure. I'll send you a bill in 2-32 weeks.

Post reply on HN