Who said being on welfare meant you couldn’t splurge on someone else’s dime?

According to a Washington Examiner report published yesterday, the Uber Eats platform will begin accepting food stamps (“SNAP benefits”) as early as 2024. (Uber Eats is a delivery service that connects drivers with patrons who ordered a take-out meal or a grocery haul.) The company released a statement on the development, and in addition to accepting SNAP, Uber Eats is also working avenues to take taxpayer money via the healthcare system; see the excerpts below:

We know that online food delivery can have a meaningful impact in reducing barriers to fresh groceries, especially for the most vulnerable–including people living in food deserts, seniors, and those facing disabilities or transportation barriers. Helping to improve access to quality food is incredibly important to our work at Uber and we’re proud to use Uber’s technology and extensive local delivery networks to offer SNAP recipients the ability to use their benefits to access fresh groceries conveniently from our app in 2024.

We are working with Managed Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans to support benefits that help members stay healthy, like accepting FSA Cards, Flex Cards, and relevant waiver payments on Uber. Select payment methods will be ready in 2024. This is yet another way we are simplifying how people can access healthy foods and connect with their local grocers in new ways.

Obviously the company isn’t running a charity, so I can only assume that “the ability to use … benefits” means the government (me and you) will reimburse Uber Eats for the fees it charges when one of its drivers does a grocery run.

There are several reasons I don’t use food delivery services, but the one that bears the most weight on my decision is the cost. With a finite income, the last thing I want to do is blow my very hard-earned money on paying someone else to run my errands—this would amount to having a personal assistant, which indeed, would be a luxury, and one I can neither afford nor justify. I don’t want my children to be hamstrung by my financial choices, I don’t want to live in poverty, and I don’t want to be dependent on others to survive, therefore I make conscious choices to forgo certain amenities. This attitude extends to unnecessary expenses beyond food delivery services, and it allows me to live a self-reliant existence of home ownership; provide a safe, proper, and private education for my children; and put high-quality and nutritious meals on the table from outside the conventional system of Big Food.

Well, it was all for naught because now welfare recipients will get to use my extorted money to enjoy the luxuries I avoid out of a sense of financial security and responsibility! A personal assistant for non-producers with someone else picking up the bill? An idea so asinine, and so established (don’t all politicians have staff?), it can only be conceived with the help of the U.S. government.

“Reducing barriers” for the “most vulnerable” is quite the euphemism for an expanding welfare state. Especially if the company is now also collaborating with the government healthcare behemoth, what’s next?

“Reducing barriers” for those in desperate need of some self-care? Will hair and nail salons get a spot at the trough?

How about “reducing barriers” for those suffering from a decline in mental health? Am I also going to receive invoices for “retail therapy” or trips to the day spa?

Where does it end, other than a collapsed monetary system?

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.