The State has established a monopoly upon the administration of Emergency Medical Services that makes us less safe, and more impoverished.
"You call, we haul" is a mantra oft repeated by Emergency Medical Services (EMS) personnel. It means quite simply that no matter how traumatic, or trivial, the complaint, you are guaranteed the best efforts of the Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT's), Paramedics, Firefighters and other professionals involved. In fact, the State requires EMS providers to render treatment and transportation to the sick and injured, regardless of their acuity, ailment, or ability to pay, as mentioned here, and explained here. While this certainly appears righteous and compassionate, upon closer scrutiny, it is an open door for abuse, propped open by the State.
In this country, anyone with a preschool education and working digit (and even some without) can summon an ambulance within minutes to his or her home. In a minority of cases, this is a virtue since those suffering from true emergencies; heart attacks, strokes, seizures and other life threatening conditions, can be rushed to the nearest ER for definitive treatment. However in the majority of calls, neither life nor limb is even remotely in jeopardy. People call 911 complaining of abdominal pain, and after being bundled up in the ambulance and assessed by paramedics, admit that they're not really having any pain at all; they just didn't want to pay for a taxi ride to the hospital. They say a taxi ride is 20 dollars, and an ambulance is free, or more accurately, they don't have to pay that bill. Or a person with chronic back pain for the last 3 years summoning unnecessary aid, revealing that if you arrive at the ER by ambulance, you bypass the waiting area and are put in a room straightaway. EMS and ER personnel have noted abuses of this sort for years, so why has no solution for this vexing problem emerged?
In virtually every other arena of business, if a customer consistently fails to pay their bills, or abuses the contractual agreement entered into with the vendor, then the provider will simply stop doing business with them. In this instance, the State has mandated that the u2018boy who cries wolf' will get unlimited access to all the resources available, at the price he wants (free), and will furthermore have the right to expose the providers involved to Hepatitis, HIV and every permutation of antibiotic resistant organisms. Rather than acting as a u2018safety net' (and even this idea is troublesome), the current regulations surrounding EMS act as concierge service for malingerers. Instead of allowing addicts, drunks, and victims of their own recklessness to reap the sour fruits of their labor, they are fed, clothed and treated to the latest advances in medical treatment. Since they are never forced to address the consequences of their actions, they can continue to lapse into heroin-induced comas, suffer heart attacks from too much cocaine, and crash into school buses, content in the knowledge that someone else will be forced by legislation to come along and help them. The parallels between this situation and the moral hazard of bailing out thoughtless investors from the bankruptcy they deserve are entirely too poignant.
The solution to this dire state of affairs is obvious to any person tangentially involved in the fight for personal liberty. Stop forcing taxpayers to fork over $10,000 to airlift every wrecked uninsured drunk driver to the nearest Level One Trauma Center for a $30,000 evaluation. Stop wasting precious resources on those who have no intention of ever paying their bills. Stop turning EMS and ER personnel into indentured servants. Perhaps then they will be able to treat their paying customers properly.
