If if you call 911 to report an emergency, and they respond with EMT’s, you will get billed regardless of why you were in that emergency, right? if I trip and fall and break my leg in my house, I’m on the hook for whatever the charges may be. Why should it be different for anyone else?
Alternately, why should my taxes subsidize someone else’s dangerous hobby to the tune of free emergency services?
Ah, but that’s different. In that case, everybody gets billed-and hence, we don’t worry that people who we think ought to get free “rescue” don’t because they’re worried they’re on the hook for the bill.
If, as a society, we decide “we won’t provide public rescues unless someone pays,” I’d disagree, but I wouldn’t have a problem with it conceptually–as everyone would know beforehand what the deal is. I have a much bigger problem with a system which we think ought to be provided at the public expense, then start making fine distinctions on who qualifies–and demand that people in an emergency figure out if they do or don’t qualify.
Should rescuers be expected to perform their services for free? Or should taxpayers get the bill?
This is the question as posed by the OP.
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Should the emergency services bill people for their services?**
Where I live, the answer is yes, they already are. However, I don’t see that there is much of a “fine distinction” between rock climbing and washing the breakfast dishes. The former is inherently dangerous, so it is much more likely that rescues will be required. And said rescues will be several orders of magnitude more dangerous and expensive to perform. Why should I subsidize an adrenaline junkie who is basically just indulging his hobby, and looking for a fix? Why shouldn’t he assume the risk and pay the tab himself?
In these cases, I say Option 3 : The rescuee pays.
But if you leave a pan on the stove and your house catches on fire, you aren’t charged by the fire department. Why is that different?
Well, but the OP poses it in the context of a system where billing only occurs through negligence. Also, if you want to be consistent, why should I subsidize any risk you undertake in washing your dishes, or in making toast? If we’re making the argument that people should pay for emergency responses because I shouldn’t subsidize anyone else’s emergency services, then it applies equally to the risks in your sink and those in the mountains.
On that line, I might contend that we spend far more in emergency responses to incidents caused by sinks (or cooking) than we do for mountain-climbing rescues (mountain climbing is riskier, and rescues are more expensive, but there’s the enormously greater volume of sink-related activity in which accidents can happen requiring emergency responses (both in terms of number of people washing dishes, and time spent washing dishes), which means there are likely far more emergency responses for dishwashing related problems (mainly ambulance, some fire due to leaks or shorts, and potentially police due to domestic disputes over who does the dishes), and I might contend that that volume would overwhelm the much greater cost of a mountainclimbing rescue)
Further, there are huge free-rider problems to paying for emergency services.
If everyone else on my block pays for police protection, and they catch the bad guy, we’re all better off. Even if I didn’t pay.
If the rest of those guys pay for fire coverage, my house will be at far lower risk (as it’s less likely to catch on fire from an uncontrolled fire next door).
Hence, many rational people won’t pay for such coverage, as they’ll get much of the societal benefits. The system can’t practically ask people to pay for all the benefits they receive-we have to make them (through taxes) in most cases. Hence, in the context of most emergency services, it’s going to be pretty difficult to exclude nonpayers from many of the benefits of those services-and that is necessary in order to have a pay-for-play pricing system).
Actually, there are three issues: the order of events, the burden of proof, and the burden of cost and action.
The difference is that speeding is pretty clear - if the number on my speedometer is higher than the number on the big sign beside the road, a cop can ticket me. And felonies are sufficiently serious crimes that most of us don’t even get near the blurry area, when there is one. Negligence is much blurrier than speeding, and a good deal easier to stumble into than felonious conduct is.
Won’t argue with you there.
But it’s a lot easier to send out a bill than to go to court. Putting the burden of action on the state to go to court in order to get to the point where the rescuee is looking at a bill will protect citizens against injudicious use of this power.
Every time I hear or read about such a thing, I’m left scratching my head, because I’ve never, ever had anyone call an ambulance for me that I didn’t get a bill, and it has NEVER been due to negligence or stupidity on my part; it’s ALWAYS been due to a medical condition I have no control over. This has been somewhere between 10-15 times in 20 years and has been in at least 5 different jurisdictions. Billed every time.
I think they should make an attempt to recover the costs.
Look if a person goes hiking they know there is a possiblity of them getting lost. Perhaps they could sell insurance in those areas. Or they could require permits to hike and charge for them.
I know one lady I worked with in Chicago was in disgust when the billed her for an ambulance ride. I told her to submit it to her insurance, and they paid it in full.
Now you see if the City of Chicago had not even tried to collect they would’ve been out an expense that WAS covered.
But God is providing for the rescuers–by making the rescuees hand over the money He gave them or will help them earn in the near future. Or rather, God guided the state legislatures to ensure the taxpayers reap back what they have sown by funding the rescue teams that God deploys in case of emergency.
“You will also be glad to know that we have a 10% discount on snow related rescues this month, as well as a 2 for 1 helicopter rescue, is there anyone else in your party?”
This is not the case in NH. If you aren’t deemed negligent you will receive no bill for rescue services, no matter how much they cost. Rescue insurance is very common in Europe and in parts of the Rockies (mainly Canada IIRC) but not here in the east.
There is a strong resistance (though not universal) in the rescue community NOT to charge people for rescues. They are worried that people will delay calling for help when they need it because of fear of being charged. Instead they wait until it is critical. What could have been a walk out turns into an 18 hour litter carry instead, or worse, people die.
Most of this is public land, right?
Offer up an insurance option when you buy your season park pass - get the insurance and it will pay for rescue, don’t get the insurance and you’ll get a bill.
Regardless of how negligent you were.
If you get ill on a cruise ship and have to be medvac’d out, you’d better have taken out trip insurance - the bill gets hefty fast.
This is mostly national forest - no permits needed or wanted. There are dozens and dozens of trailheads, plus lots of private land inholdings and abutments. But this is also on state parks, private land that has hiking trails, rivers and lakes that are public. None of these in NH have any permit system (except for parking, but that’s another story.)
They do this for climbers in Denali National Park, your permit to climb covers rescue costs. There would be no easy way to implement this on the combination of federal, state, and private land involved.
I have no problem with this, but I think the rules should be clear, consistent and laid out beforehand. It shouldn’t be an arbitrary decision made after the fact. As has been mentioned before, it is standard for people to be billed for their rescue in non-remote situations. I don’t see why something happening in the woods would be different.
Anyway, why should a municipality with some dangerous attraction have to suck up the costs of rescuing people who decide to take their lives into their own hands?
They don’t - there are several options:
They can just let them die.
They can pass taxes to pay for it, and target taxes on tourist things (hotel rooms, out-of-town fishing or hunting permits, lift tickets)
They can have a volunteer only rescue squad
They can tax themselves.
They can try to recover the costs from a portion of those who are rescued.
I have no problem with charging some of the people who are rescued who violate some type of standard - though the reasonable person standard is a tough one when it comes to the backcountry. What I consider reasonable is far from what my father thinks is reasonable. He won’t go into the backcountry without enough supplies to survive a zombie attack. I like to see how light I can pack and still be comfortable. He might need rescuing due to exhaustion, while I might get hit with hunger or hypo due to insufficient food / shelter. Someone else might find BOTH of us acting “unreasonably” - even though we both have had survival training and both of us could (and have) easily teach a class in our respective types backcountry living.
No.
Police work can be considered a common good, because investigating a crime against person A will slightly reduce the likelihood that a crime will be committed against anyone else - both because that particular criminal may be caught and prevented from reoffending, and because catching that criminal serves as a deterrent to other criminals.
Rescuing someone is not a common good, because rescuing person A after he got lost in the outback does not provide significant benefit to the rest of the population.
It allows the entire population to go into the woods on a cold day knowing they will not die. Everyone gets protection from the danger.
thats true but,
You rescue someone who pays taxes, and unless it was one EXPENSIVE rescue, in the long run they will still be a net economic and probably social positive to society, moreso than having letting them die at that point in time.
Though, on second thought, maybe we shouldn’t rescue criminals, retires, and lawyers. Oops thats only two things. Hi Opal.
I certainly would not go that far. It gives them hope that if they can be found alive that they might not die. But it is no protection from danger at all. Only the hope of rescue or recovery of their remains prior to the local critters getting to them.