Posted on 11/17/2014 1:51:55 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The CEO of Uber said Friday that Obamacare has played a crucial role for his army of drivers, an unusual, partial endorsement of the president’s signature policy from a man often cast as a hero of anti-government libertarianism.
BuzzFeed News reported in October that the new, subsidized market for health care has been a boon to companies like Uber, which are essentially digital middlemen relying on armies of independent contractors. Figures ranging from Uber drivers to Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber called the health care overhaul crucial in the emergence of the sharing economy, but Uber had remained officially silent on the subject until Friday.
“It’s huge,” Travis Kalanick, Uber’s CEO and co-founder, said in response to a question about Uber and Obamacare at a dinner in Manhattan. Kalanick didn’t comment on the specifics of the health care policy, but said he sees little sense in the traditional link between employment and health care; he said he believes all Americans should have access to some health care safety net, without losing the option of paying more money for private care.
And he said the success of Obamacare’s core goal — creating a functioning individual market for health care — is very much in sync with Uber’s vision of a liberated work force.
“The democratization of those types of benefits allow people to have more flexible ways to make a living,” Kalanick said. “They don’t have to be working for The Man.”
Uber is vastly the largest and most successful of a new wave of sharing economy companies, adding 50,000 new independent contractors to its platform nationwide every month, and Kalanick’s endorsement comes as a new Republican Congress feels its way on issues touching both tech and a health care policy many of its leaders have sworn to repeal.
Anyone supporting “Obamacare” is a fascist.
That being said, it would be a good idea to give everyone the same tax benefits on their health insurance premiums as employers get for providing it.
Since wage and price controls are a thing of the past,
there is no need to use health insurance as a “income supplement” in order to attract good employees.
Sure it has. Soak up big public subsidies to build crappy websites and put out third-rate insurance. Dump your employees into an exchange and pocket their premiums. What’s not to like?
Makes me hate Über. I wish he hadn’t said that.
NO FRIGGEN SALE.
They think we're that stupid.
I agree with the premise that it’s helpful to sever the links between employment and health care coverage.
That’s an artifact of union bargaining to circumvent WW2 wage controls. By insulating user from payment, it produced the cost spiral in health care.
This only shows businessowners can be stupid.
Make no mistake, getting out from under health insurance costs is corporate America’s fondest dream.
Since they're independent contractors it doesn't cost Uber anything!
“Uber doesn’t hire these people they’re independent contractors!”
Give it a few decades and most of our economy will be this way.
Ditto.
And heath insurance as part of ones’ employment compensation package should always have been taxable as income ... because it is income.
That said, taxes overall should be much much lower.
So in essence...
Obamacare has been really good in growing the “Unregulated underground economies”.....
Well, duh, usually the “black markets” THRIVE in communistic systems....
If you sold cigarettes and toilet paper in soviet russia, as long as you avoided or paid off the authorities you had it MADE!
Oh look! I no longer give a $hit if cities continue to ban this outfit.
Then watch their foolishly-smug smiles disappear when you inform them that they have just effectively endorsed the Walmart employee salary and benefits plans that they so love to demonize and demagogue.
Let me pump $85 billion of our grandchildren a money a month and I too will appear to be a hero of the economy. Until the Bill comes due..
Why should “health insurance” be connected to employment?
That’s just an artifact of union bargaining during WW2 to circumvent wartime wage controls.
Exactly, and this is the problem that needs to be solved, because the days of steady employment are coming to an end, due to globalization and technological advances.
I used to use Uber. No more.
But I do have the personal number for one of their drivers. I will call him, but directly rather than through Uber.
Agreed
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