Some years ago I got, in addition to my full-time job, a part-time job driving a bus for a medical transportation company. I quickly discovered the whole place was a scam exploiting workers and taxpayers.
I drove a small bus that transported people in wheelchairs. I transported diabetics with no legs, and cancer patients with no arms. You’d think it’d pay well. It didn’t.
It paid nine dollars an hour with no raises and no benefits. None. For the drivers who worked full-time, they made good money only by working ten to twelve hours a day, five to six days a week. After I quit I reported the place to the state departments of labor and of transportation.
Rather than pay a good wage, the company found it cheaper to pay overtime even up to 20 hours a week. Obviously, it’s unsafe to work drivers that much. That’s one of the reasons I reported the place.
One driver rolled a bus and killed his passenger. The company lost its insurance over that one, but somehow got another company to cover it. Another driver, when a kid ran in front of him, instead of turning right into parked cars, turned left into a head-on collusion. He killed his passenger and paralyzed himself. I wonder how many hours he had been working?
That was the exploitation of the drivers. The scam worked like this: 90% of the company’s money was from Medicare, i.e., the taxpayers. The owners were multi-millionaires, off of the taxpayers. They put most of the money into own pockets and paid the drivers a pittance.
While one driver could live on the money offered, a family could not. So how did the drivers with families survive? A food card, energy assistance, housing assistance.
Not only was the company scamming the taxpayers and exploiting the drivers, it was also forcing the drivers onto government assistance to live rather than give benefits and raises. In other words, it was exploiting taxpayers in two ways: from Medicare, and from forcing drivers onto welfare.
I’ve heard this called “privatizing the benefits and socializing the costs.” Businesses are making billions of dollars doing this.
Of course, this won’t last. The government has already run out of money.
These scams are what happen when governments get involved in the economy. It’s not to benefit the public; it’s to exploit them.