California town to charge $300 for 911 calls.

Run_to_da_hills

Tracy California is to charge $300 for making 911 calls But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year which allows them to call 9-1-1 as many times as necessary.

Or, there's the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead, they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.

So if you live in Tracy Califirnia and you see someone lying injured on the side of the road you just don't call the emergency services, it could cost you $300 if the fire sevices get there first. :eek:

Very clever move, I wonder how long this will last. :rolleyes:

http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-news-tracymedicalfees,0,7784353.story

Sierra Oscar

That's terrible, to be honest. I'm not surprised though - the State of California is completely bankrupt, and crazy regulations have been popping up as a result.

source

Reminds me of the crazy South Carolina Mayor who banned police chases linky, that was revoked 3 days after it was announced in the media, this will hopefully be similar in the length of time it survives.

Delancey

Utterly ludicrious idea , now if it was a charge for calling 911 for non-emergency matters that would be a good idea .

seanybiker

delancey42 wrote: »

Utterly ludicrious idea , now if it was a charge for calling 911 for non-emergency matters that would be a good idea .

that would be an excellent idea alright.

time lord

Our local authority charges a fat fee if you call 999 and ask for the fire brigade. I dont know what the current charge is but its not nominal.
A bit of uproar at the start of its introduction but they have being collecting it for years now.
And yes it does stop people calling for help, many dont call until the usual chimney fire has gone very large and hope it goes out itself..

silverharp

seanybiker wrote: »

that would be an excellent idea alright.

the only problem is that there is no "market price" for the service, letting a public monopoly free reign to charge what they want would just be self serving and wouldnt improve the quality of the service

goose2002

time lord wrote: »

Our local authority charges a fat fee if you call 999 and ask for the fire brigade. I dont know what the current charge is but its not nominal.
A bit of uproar at the start of its introduction but they have being collecting it for years now.
And yes it does stop people calling for help, many dont call until the usual chimney fire has gone very large and hope it goes out itself..

Thats actually not true and is one of these vicious little rumours that gets thrown about and actually makes people think twice about calling the Fire Brigade which is ridiculous. The person who benefits from the fire brigade does get a bill (And I think it might only be for certain types of calls), not the person who makes the call. I've heard people in the past talking about how the anybody who calls the Fire Brigade gets charged and this kind of thinking may have stopped people calling when having seen a fire. Regarding the person who benifits getting billed, its covered under insurance under most cases. The money has to come from somewhere and the fire brigade is an expensive service to run.

time lord

goose2002 wrote: »

Thats actually not true and is one of these vicious little rumours that gets thrown about and actually makes people think twice about calling the Fire Brigade which is ridiculous. The person who benefits from the fire brigade does get a bill (And I think it might only be for certain types of calls), not the person who makes the call. I've heard people in the past talking about how the anybody who calls the Fire Brigade gets charged and this kind of thinking may have stopped people calling when having seen a fire. Regarding the person who benifits getting billed, its covered under insurance under most cases. The money has to come from somewhere and the fire brigade is an expensive service to run.

The person who benefits from the call directly makes up a large percentage of the people who do call the 999.

Yes the fire service is expensive, most people would say thats what they pay taxes for. Disagreeing with double taxation is not linked to denigrating a fine emergency service.

Most things can be insured against e.g. fire call out charges etc but people are people and a large number have no insurance for whatever reason. This becomes very obvious when flooding occurs.

My work takes me to many council estates and traditional working class estates and what they share in common are bad or non existant up-take on home insurence policies.

The call out fee for a fire brigade in my opinion does make people hesitate in calling 999.

I know of one instance where the househoulder with the burning chimney told the fire brigade upon their arrival that she hadn't called them and met them at the gate to tell them.

Run_to_da_hills

delancey42 wrote: »

Utterly ludicrious idea , now if it was a charge for calling 911 for non-emergency matters that would be a good idea .

Like pensioners having their cats rescued from tree tops.

UpstateEMS

Ok, re-read the News Story. You don't pay $300 for dialling 911, you pay $300 if the Fire Department provides medical services prior to the transport ambulance arriving. This is very, very different from paying for each call to 911.

Unfortunately, this $300 will likely have to come out of pocket from the patient. The way the laws are structured in the United States, only 1 bill can be sent to insurance companies for emergency medical services and this is normally the transporting agency. (In certain situations, if the transporting agency is a volunteer service, a different agency can bill.) So, the FD could send a bill to the transporting agency for their services or send a bill directly to the patient.

The concept that the Tracy is trying, paying a small yearly fee to avoid a large fee when service is delivered, is not unknown in the States. I've heard of some Air Ambulance programs in the South and commercial fire departments out West doing something similar before.

From my perspective, there are four options:
1. Tracy FD stops providing First Responder services to save money.
2. Tracy FD invests in an Ambulance and provides transport services in order to bill insurance companies.
3. Taxes go up in Tracy.
4. People pay the fee.

Professional emergency medical service costs money, there is no way around this. The days of throwing someone in the back of an estate and driving as fast as possible to the hospital are over.

Delancey

I remember when I was in Australia a loooong time ago they operated a system whereby if you made a small annual donation ( 10 or 20 Dollars AUS ) you were entitled to a ' free ' ambulance ride. Of course you didn't have to pay the donation but then you paid full market price if you needed the service which at the time was provided by private operators ( like I said it was along time ago and may have changed since ).

Run_to_da_hills

Its not uncommon to hear of several ambulances turn up at an accident in the states from seperate private hospitals.

Delancey

And I thought multiple tow trucks turning up at an RTA was bad

Zambia

delancey42 wrote: »

I remember when I was in Australia a loooong time ago they operated a system whereby if you made a small annual donation ( 10 or 20 Dollars AUS ) you were entitled to a ' free ' ambulance ride. Of course you didn't have to pay the donation but then you paid full market price if you needed the service which at the time was provided by private operators ( like I said it was along time ago and may have changed since ).

I'm in Victoria this morning, and I paid 36 dollars to cover myself and the wife for the year.

If I didn't have ambulance cover and needed an ambulance I am liable for the cost of my transport whatever that may be. God help me if I needed an airlift.

Personnally I think its a good system 36 bucks a year (20-22 Euro) should not cripple anyone.

civdef

It's worth mentioning that many communities in the US have very low local taxes, and the fire services may receive little or no money from local or central government. In these areas, people either subscribe to a "fire district" or similar body, or pay a larger fee if they use the service. It's like medical insurance, in a lot of ways.