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A comment on Introducing Uber Health, Removing Transportation as a Barrier to Care. Parent comment

Re:Introducing Uber Health, Removing Transportation as a Bar... by knuththetruth on Thursday March 01, 2018 @01:33PM (#16494711)
>But I don't think it's fair to blame capitalism in an environment where there's only a handful of entrenched players.

This is literally the endpoint of Capitalism without regulation to prevent monopolies and a floor of public goods. You absolutely should blame it and those who fail to either check or dismantle its power.

Throughout American history, corporations have explicitly undermined and destroyed public transportation so they can profit from it. That’s why things are so bad. First they did it to sell individual cars and now to sell taxi services. Uber’s express ambition is to become the transportation monopoly you decry.

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Re:Introducing Uber Health, Removing Transportation as a Bar... by mrguyorama on Thursday March 01, 2018 @01:42PM (#16494815)
>First they did it to sell individual cars

No, they've been doing this since at least railroads, the OG monopolies

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Re:Introducing Uber Health, Removing Transportation as a Bar... by knuththetruth on Thursday March 01, 2018 @01:52PM (#16494922)
Good point!
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Re:Introducing Uber Health, Removing Transportation as a Bar... by EggsOnToast on Thursday March 01, 2018 @02:07PM (#16495083)
I think you're right that I was too general but I still disagree in this context. I agree with your premise that free market capitalism is vulnerable to monopolies. But healthcare services in the U.S. are so heavily regulated that it's difficult to see how capitalism could be the factor limiting competition in this context and not the regulatory environment. That doesn't mean that the environment needs to be removed, but I do think it could be better optimized.

We're quickly derailing from my initial point though, that however things got here I think Ubera new service has the potential to relieve a lot of people in a market which I believe is inadequately served at the moment.

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