AliPay

I was intrigued by a recent Wall Street Journal article about how some retail establishments won't accept cash as a form of payment, citing Drybar, Sweetgreen, and at least one Starbucks location. Cashless is touted as faster, safer, easier to administer, and in line with most customers' preference. Indeed, a new study from the Pew Research Center found that 29% of all U.S. adults don't use cash at all in their typical week, up from 24% in 2015. The higher the household income, the less cash was used. Alistair Johnson writes in Forbes that, hey, if we're going to a cashless society, we should make it a cardless one as well, not simply replace our cash with those pieces of plastic we use for debit/credit. I think he's on to something there, and both discussions made me think about how we change the constructs of our everyday lives -- including in healthcare.

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