> The interesting thing is that this may not have been a heartless move, it seems to have been, from what I can tell, a well-meaning move that is going to hurt the very people politicians were trying to help. I feel like this is a theme of the last 100 years repeating itself over and over.

There is a tendency to classify failed left-leaning policies as 'well-intentioned but failures' and right-leaning policies as 'heartless and also failures'. This is a ridiculous dichotomy.

The fact is that everyone knew this was going to happen. It was indeed a heartless policy. The leftist lawmakers that run california could have asked anyone and could have at least feigned interest in helping Uber and Lyft succeed in their state. Instead, they chose to essentially ban their business model with no input from the companies. It is especially egregious because the state has spent the last 50 years building an incredibly car-dependent society, and has failed in its duty to bring any kind of workable public transportation system. Uber and Lyft started to become their finally workable transit system, and the state can't even have that.

I'm done pretending that leftist policies are well-intentioned. We need to start calling them what they are -- evil.

Not for nothing (and feeling somewhat old for remembering this) but lyrics from a song from the late 80s come to mind[1].

"That those who know what's best for us Must rise and save us from ourselves"

It was on a playlist I was listening to last week walking my dog. Seems quite apropos here.

[1] https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rush/witchhunt.html

But isn't the better position here to create a bill that decouples health benefits from the employer and allow contractors to have better lives?

This exactly. I can't for the life of me figure out why so many people think we should keep saddling private companies with all of this stuff. We should make operating a business as simple as possible. If you want everyone to have healthcare, pass universal healthcare (in California at least).

Thinking about how to structure this:

- Drivers should get the extra funds for medical insurance. California has Medicare and Medicaid, it just needs funds.

- Uber and Lyft don't want to employ people because of fixed vs non-fixed hours, etc. Full time employees at 40 hours per week get medical insurance, so gig-work (like Uber/Lyft) should probably pay partial amounts for medical insurance based on hours worked (i.e. roughly calculated at driving time for Uber or Lyft).

- California (through Medicare/Medicaid) sets a "medical insurance target", e.g. $200 per week, and a HSA for all gig-workers. If a driver drives 4 hours a week (40 / 4 = 10%), Lyft has to contribute $20 (10% of $200) to the HSA for that driver.

- The driver can either withdraw the money from HSA as income, or use the money tax-free to pay Medicare to continue coverage. If the driver only drove 20 hours per week on average, i.e. the HSA didn't have enough funds, the driver would pay the difference out-of-pocket. Ideally, drivers would drive 40 hours per week between Lyft, Uber, etc, and get full medical coverage.

Decouple healthcare from employment entirely, it was a mistake to begin with. Also the idea that employers "cover" some part of healthcare cost is false. The employee pays for all of it through their employment, it is part of their compensation.

I grew up in Canada, I agree with you. I’m just trying to help structure it in a way that California might actually adopt.

Yet another example of how Medicare for All would be a benefit to all citizens and businesses except those profiting off artificially limiting the supply of healthcare.