Amazon Courts Medicaid Recipients With Deep Prime Discount
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Amazon this week expanded its discounted Prime membership program, already available to EBT card holders, to include Medicaid recipients. Eligible customers can become Prime members for US$5.99 a month, less than half the regular $12.99 monthly fee.
The move — another step in Amazon’s efforts to reach underserved economic communities — ratchets up its competition with Walmart.
Amazon provides customers with a link to authenticate their membership in eligible government assistance programs. It is not clear how the company has been working with the Department of Health and Human Services to verify the records.
Amazon Web Services last year hosted 68 million Medicaid records.
Checking In
The expansion of the discount program followed by just a couple of days reports that Amazon recently engaged in talks with JP Morgan Chase and other banks regarding the possibility of establishing a co-branded checking account program to provide limited banking access to customers.
Amazon previously has offered services targeting the unbanked population, including a stored value card called “Amazon Cash,” which lets users load cash onto unlinked debit cards and then use them for purchases with Amazon and certain other retailers.
Customers can deposit funds into their stored value accounts by showing a barcode at a local retailer and presenting the cash.
Amazon’s expansion is in part at least a competitive play to target the core market of rival Walmart, which is a favorite retailer with working class and low-income consumers, in…
