Ok this is a rabbit trail, but............mmmmm, I think you are behind the times here ... I am just a country medical responder, but from my exposure to EMS I would bet that darn near all, if not all cities and towns of any size that have a paid emergency (911) ambulance service not only route tax money to it, but charge for each transport as well. Insurance and Medicare often cover it, or most of it, for those who have it. For those that can't pay, the government eventually eats the cost and tries make it up elsewhere. Even if the ambulance is run by a paid fire department, which probably doesn't charge for fire runs, it will almost certainly charge for an ambulance run. And ambulance runs will be the large majority of the fire department's runs.Charles L. Cotton wrote: ... Only in recent years have larger cities started to charge for ambulance service and I think that's wrong. I pay for that service in advance when I pay my taxes.
Chas.
Even here in rural Guadalupe County, the county is covered by contract out of Schertz for ambulance service. Schertz has its own ambulance service that services its area, then subcontracts most of the rest of the county to Seguin (city) Fire Department (the area closest to New Braunfels and San Marcos are covered by others). When a county resident calls, volunteer fire department medical responders usually get there first, followed by the Seguin FD Ambulance. The volunteer medical responders are free (at least to the patient, the responders pay for their own gas), but the Seguin FD will send a bill if the patient goes for ride to the hospital. It well be several hundred dollars at a minimum.
The number of ambulance calls has skyrocketed in the last decade or two, and it costs $$$$ to have paramedic-level service to everyone. For a tax-payer funded service the $$ come from taxes or directly billing patients/insurance, and for governments have seen fit to try to pay for all kinds of other stuff too, so despite taxes jumping way up, there's not enough $$ allocated to the ambulance service to keep ti going unless they get $$ from the patient/insurance.
I have no doubt there are many people taken to the hospital now by ambulance that would have not gone, or not gone by ambulance, in the past. Part of this is recognition of certain conditions that were not recognized in the past, but a lot of it has to do with "being safe;" also it has been my experience that older folks in their 80s are much more reluctant to go to the ER than their kids in their 50s and younger, and there are lot more of the younger ones. Medical people are no doubt influenced by wanting to "be safe" -- and not sued -- so off goes the patient to the ER, even for things that seem much less life-threatening than annoying.
But I am sure Obamacare will fix all this.
Trying to tie it to the previous posts (which I am not sure exactly which side you are coming down on about that sailing family) but if there were as many cross-atlantic sailors getting into, or thinking they are getting into trouble as there are calling 911 for an ambulance, you would see the Coasties charging. I suspect handling small boat distress calls close to shore eats up a significant portion of CG time as it is.
TANSTAAFL, even if you already paid taxes...
