Within the first week that Austin Correll was driving for Lyft in the fall of 2021, he was sent to pick up passengers at an address that turned out to be for a hospital. When he pulled up to the curb, he found an elderly woman in a wheelchair and another other with a walker, waiting for him — flanked by four or five nurses.
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Excerpts:
They literally are just sending normal drivers to do medical transport:
Drivers who do not sign up for Lyft and Uber’s assisted programs can be sent NEMT rides without any training. Drivers who want to participate in the assisted programs are required to take tutorials created by the Open Doors Organization (ODO), a non-profit organization that aims to “teach businesses how to succeed in the disability market.” They don’t include medical or emergency information, a spokesman for the company says: “I’d say it’s more just about customer service.”
A PR rep for Lyft says Lyft Healthcare should not be used for people who have “medical needs,”
its so cartoonishly a bad/evil idea that it wouldn't have worked as bad dystopian writing even 5 years ago
Literally no medical training, equipment, PPE, or certifications. Just the free market baby.
Literally no medical training, equipment, PPE, or certifications. Just the free market baby.
You have free healthcare sweetie, it's called taking an uber when you've been shot/stabbed by an anti-vaxx chud because you were wearing a mask or were asian.
If the "free market" ever when in the other direction, it would be more believable as a force that is able to find solutions to problems. "Ooops, turns out cars were a bad idea, free market is investing 100x into public transit" "Ooops, thousands dead from COVID, free market is making universal health care" "Ooops, the river is on fire, free market is making it legal to hunt oil CEOs"
There are a number of Lyft and Uber drivers who have personal mobility issues. This could very easily result in situations where you have someone unable to walk without assistance being expected to physically assist someone else who is also unable to walk without assistance.
relevant copypasta
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
Waiting for the country to go full cyberpunk and give weapons to EMTs to transport VIPs (read: grandmas for paid an additional $500/month to be transported for a monthly physical)
Holy shit American capitalists really are gutting every last thing they can get their hands on now, aren't they? At what point is it when they can't beat the falling rate of profit, and when there is nothing left to monetize? What happens then?
Luckily I don't have healthy organs so they wont be able to harvest me....although I guess they'll try....:doomjak:
Flashback to taking an uber to the ER a few years ago when I cut my hand open.
It's been common for a LONG time now.
For the past few years, rideshare companies Lyft and Uber have been moving into the non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) business, offering their networks to healthcare organizations that need to schedule rides for patients. Correll isn’t sure if his ride was through a formal NEMT program, but it could have been: to protect patient privacy, drivers aren’t told if their rides are from healthcare partnerships or not.
Wow, this bullshit smells like bullshit!
NEMT is used as a way to help low-income patients and Medicaid recipients get to appointments they might otherwise miss because they lack access to transportation. The need for such services is significant: millions of people in the United States, mostly low income, miss doctors’ appointments each year because of transportation barriers, costing the health system billions of dollars. But while NEMT is often done through dedicated companies, rideshare groups are now interested in what’s estimated to be a $3 billion market.
If only there were some way to have reliable medical transport.
Are they still calling it rideshares? Nobody can seriously believe that it's not a taxi-service but just random drivers who by pure coincidence happens to be going from where you are to the place you want to go to.
Notably, rideshare programs are also much cheaper and lead to cost savings for health systems and insurers (rides are subsidized by the companies, making for a cheaper product even as the business is unprofitable).
They’re literally not making money and are just undercutting what little shitty medical infrastructure Amerika has to get market dominance.
More research is needed to get a good understanding of the role rideshare can play in NEMT, Eisenberg says. It’s hard to do rigorous research, though, because the rideshare companies, like most technology companies, are reluctant to share their own data.
Should be a pre-req for them even getting to pilot test.
Drivers who do not sign up for Lyft and Uber’s assisted programs can be sent NEMT rides without any training. Drivers who want to participate in the assisted programs are required to take tutorials created by the Open Doors Organization (ODO), a non-profit organization that aims to “teach businesses how to succeed in the disability market.” They don’t include medical or emergency information, a spokesman for the company says: “I’d say it’s more just about customer service.”
A PR rep for Lyft says Lyft Healthcare should not be used for people who have “medical needs,”. In an interview, he said Lyft aims to handle non-emergency transport for riders with fewer needs so that traditional medical transport groups could focus on rides “at the top of their license.”
:agony-deep:
A PR rep for Lyft says Lyft Healthcare should not be used for people who have “medical needs,”
Please don't use our ambulances as ambulances, we're not liable for anything. If someone did do that it would be totally their fault and not ours
Good to know that Uber drivers will be transported by other untrained Uber drivers because Uber doesn't provide its "classified as independent contractors" workers any meaningful health insurance
How long before one of these drivers kill a school child crossing the street because he’s driving 125 MPH to rush a pregnant woman to the hospital because a normal ambulance would cost $1000?
