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It's such a surreal concept to me that having to be picked up by emergency services will cost you money. I feel so incredibly lucky to live in a country where h

• sepeth 13y ago
  Norway?
  • flexd 13y ago
    Yes.
• chc 13y ago
  Many Americans don't even realize how expensive an ambulance ride is until they go through it. It just seems counterintuitive.
• ryanmolden 13y ago
  I am not a crazy anti-healthcare nut as this comment will make me appear, but I think you mean "healthcare is paid for by others/collectively", since it isn't free to provide services, unless your doctors are working for no money.
  • citricsquid 13y ago
    I think everyone in the world understands free healthcare to mean free at the point of service.
    • ryanmolden 13y ago
      You might be surprised, I have talked with people that say 'free' and I say 'you mean paid for collectively' and they say 'no, free' :)
      • pyre 13y ago
        I expect that a conversation with such a person would go like: Person: No, free. You: So how will the doctor get paid? Person: By the government. You: Where does the government get its money? Person: Oh... People usually have the knowledge, they just haven't made the connections.
      • LaGrange 13y ago
        There are 7 billion people on Earth right now. You are going to find some that don't know what the hell "breathing" means if you just try hard enough. Using this to pick apart at the word "everyone" is just as pedantic as picking at the specific definition of "free" in that question. Even more, in most systems I know the amount paid for health insurance is fairly explicit. Where I live you actually get a bill from a non-state company (some things may be subsidized from other taxes, and if you can't afford it you also get a subsidy, though) so no, people don't think it's "really-really" free. It's "people with more money contribute more".
    • enraged_camel 13y ago
      Everyone except pedants.
  • nitrogen 13y ago
    But surely there's no reason for a simple ride to an ER to cost $900-$2000, is there? You could hire someone to drive you in a Ferrari for that.
    • justin66 13y ago
      The quick response times our ambulances achieve are due to their being strategically placed around a city, manned and ready to go. It works this way whether you're talking about a city-owned ambulance at the fire station or a privately-owned one idling in a parking lot somewhere. In either case, you (or your insurance, or your city, or your state...) are paying for a driver and at least one paramedic to sit around at the ready, not just for the quick trip.
      • jmadsen 13y ago
        I don't think that doesn't make any "economic logic", for lack of being able to remember the correct term. If that were true - if the price was based on the cost - you would have small towns & rural areas where it would be so expensive, no one could use them, and cities where even though there were more ambulances, EMTs, etc, the cost would be spread so thin as to be barely noticeable I don't believe the price is tied so directly to cost of service
        • justin66 13y ago
          It's hard to make out exactly what your point is but you're correct if you're trying to say that the price here is not simply about supply and demand. The costs of ambulances are subsidized in many ways (but they're never "free") and you're also dealing with people who generally don't have the ability to shop around. It's not a "market" item, really, on either side of the transaction. Regarding rural areas and small towns: they often keep costs down by having crappy medical services in general, and slower response times specifically. It's not always that bad, though. If a town isn't sprawled out response times shouldn't suffer so much.
          • jmadsen 13y ago
  • mikeash 13y ago
    Technically, nothing is free. Yet we can still productively use the word.
    • ams6110 13y ago
      A thing can be said to be "free" if, at a price of zero, there is sufficient supply to meet demand.
      • mikeash 13y ago
        Do you have an example? I'm having a hard time thinking of any.
        • philwelch 13y ago
          Some things have negative prices--you have to pay people to take them away. Stuff like garbage or sewage.
        • philh 13y ago
          Breathable air.
          • precisioncoder 13y ago
            I'm afraid breathable air does cost you the energy required to operate the lungs. This energy is mostly generated from digesting organic matter such as vegetables and meat which can vary in price. Free cannot exist since we live in a universe with entropy. In other words in any given system some energy (cost) is lost.
            • boomlinde 13y ago
              He said breathable air, not breathing.
              • precisioncoder 13y ago
• youngerdryas 13y ago
  >picked up by emergency services will cost you money It does cost you money. Europe plays a different game than the US but both are games. Thanks to Kennedy no one can be turned away from the ER for lack of insurance and bills are paid off later for cents on the dollar if you have no assets. If you have assets and no insurance too bad.
  • justin66 13y ago
    > Thanks to Kennedy no one can be turned away from the ER Which is funny, since they're only required to "stabilize" you once you're there. I know a guy who was attacked, suffered head injuries, and couldn't remember who he was. He was patched up and discharged in that condition since he didn't have his insurance card on him (and, I assume, since a shirtless and beaten-looking guy with long hair is just assumed to be homeless). I am quite certain that behavior isn't typical of the hospitals in our area, but I bet it's totally legal. And a valuable cost-saving measure! An MBA somewhere is surely proud.
    • omarali 13y ago
      > And a valuable cost-saving measure! Hospitals make a lot of money from unpaid bills http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dRn9ySc-RDM#t=464s http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
• redthrowaway 13y ago
  I'm in Vancouver. I got hit by a cab on New Year's and had to pay $80 for the ambulance. The cab's insurance is picking that up, despite the whole ordeal being my fault, so they're sending me a check for $110 then asking me for $1500 back. Go figure.
  • lostlogin 13y ago
    Please could you explain this in greater depth? Asking for $1500 back ...?
    • pyre 13y ago
      Damage to the cab (since it was his/her fault) I assume.
• elithrar 13y ago
  > It's such a surreal concept to me that having to be picked up by emergency services will cost you money. I feel so incredibly lucky to live in a country where healthcare is free. We have a (very good) public healthcare system here in Australia; but an ambulance will still cost you.
  • NamTaf 13y ago
    Not for people in Queensland. It used to be rolled in to our electricity bill at $24/quarter but that was abolished a while ago (apparently 2003). We're now just covered simply by living in Queensland for ambulance transport anywhere in Australia (that is, if I need an ambulance in Victoria, I am covered by the State) [1]. [1]: http://www.ambulance.qld.gov.au/about/ http://www.ambulance.qld.gov.au/about/
• rdl 13y ago
  I'd rather see the direct or marginal costs of the ambulance or paramedics billed to the user (so, if they expend saline, or bandages, or whatever, you pay for it), and the hourly wage and vehicle costs for the trip itself. That would price a routine EMT-B ambulance trip around $100 -- still enough that people who didn't need it would take a taxi or drive themselves to a doctor for a non-incapacitating problem, but cheap enough that it could be paid out of pocket. The costs of keeping ambulances ready, training, etc. could be socialized somehow. I benefit by having 5-10 minute EMS response times even if I never use it for 70 years, so paying for that out of taxes or some other universal subscription fee to users makes sense, rather than putting all the costs on those unlucky enough to need it.
  • JshWright 13y ago
    In some areas (those with municipal ambulance services), that's exactly what happens. In my case, I volunteer with a combination career/volunteer fire/rescue/EMS agency. Our 'operating costs' are payed by taxes, but if you use the service, you get a bill ranging from ~$100 for a routine BLS transport to ~$500 for a 'significant' ALS call (lots of drugs and advanced interventions). We don't itemize, but we do adjust billing based on what was done.
    • pyre 13y ago
      My daughter had febrile seizures as an infant. The ride in the ambulance to the hospital was ~$1k, IIRC. I don't think that she was on any sort of IV or anything, but my wife was in the back (I rode up front). (This was in Portland, OR)
  • lostlogin 13y ago
    If you're prepared to socialise some of it, why not go the whole hog. Is there anyone who thinks that ambulances should e user pays? It simplifies things too, as a fair portion of accidents have a blameless victim, so the cost makes them a victim twice.
    • rdl 13y ago
      The problem is when it's totally socialized (like medicare), you end up with people abusing the service. If an ambulance ride costs you less than a taxi or even bus, and you're an asshole, you use an ambulance (in some places, provided by paramedics, so the direct costs are high -- in some places they also send a fire truck, so you end up with like 20 highly-trained guys and $500k of equipment) to go to a routine checkup. 3-5 times a week. You could probably waive charging direct costs if you had some other way of deterring abuse, but they essentially always have to respond to 911 calls, so the only way I could think of doing so would be to arrest someone who misuses the service. A policy of informally losing the bill for legitimate calls might work, or doing the standard drug dealer "first one's free" strategy. But I don't think $100-500 for an ambulance would break most people, particularly with insurance; a charity could also cover the bills for some people.
• btilly 13y ago
  I grew up in a country (Canada) where healthcare was free, but you still paid for emergency services. The two are not the same, and there is a real benefit to discouraging the unnecessary use of ambulances.
• peterpathname 13y ago
  FYI, where I am, people other than pensioners pay a small annual registration / insurance fee to the ambulance service to avoid large fees upon use of the service
• bdunbar 13y ago
  "healthcare is free." The money to pay for that ambulance ride is coming from somewhere.
  • lostlogin 13y ago
    Someone always makes this comment. It's unhelpful as the meaning of free is clear. It's the same kind of free as the bank bailout. It cost you nothing and a hell of a lot at the same time.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• GFischer 13y ago
  In my country, ambulances are free for only life-threatening cases, but most everyone pays for an Emergency service (ambulances and walk-in ER), which costs U$ 15/month.