# Is it true that when you call an ambulance for someone, you have to pay for it? (need answer fast) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 23, 2016, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621 "2016-09-23T04:24:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/181 "2016-10-03T15:16:43Z")
Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2016, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/182 "2016-10-04T04:05:12Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > Your cite is admittedly better than mine, and does show shorter waits. However, it still shows longer waits than in the UK. 110 minutes in the UK as opposed to 135 minutes in the US. (Your 30 minutes wait time appears to be time until you are seen, rather than to fully treated.) So what are these really long ER wait times in UK and Canada I hear way more than the US? ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2016, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/183 "2016-10-04T04:06:49Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > Your cite is admittedly better than mine, and does show shorter waits. However, it still shows longer waits than in the UK. 110 minutes in the UK as opposed to 135 minutes in the US. (Your 30 minutes wait time appears to be time until you are seen, rather than to fully treated.) Also what are these shortages of specialists and surgeons I keep hearing about in UK and Canada? ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2016, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/184 "2016-10-04T10:43:33Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > Australia. I hadn’t really thought about it much, so I looked it up. $918 here in Canberra, seriously discourages one to do it. I can see myself opt for “drive and hope” should push come to shove. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/185 "2017-05-04T01:32:11Z")
> [@Cugel](#): > > I hadn’t really thought about it much, so I looked it up. $918 here in Canberra, seriously discourages one to do it. I can see myself opt for “drive and hope” should push come to shove. And, for some reason SA.AUS (last I looked) had decided that their standard ambulance insurance only covers in-state. If you’re from SA and need an ambulance on holiday in Q’land, you need private medical cover, or something else. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/186 "2017-05-05T01:10:24Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > I don’t think you fully grok what we are talking about. You have money taken of your paycheck by taxes to pay for healthcare. More than someone form the UK does. Then, unlike someone in the UK, you have to pay again to actually receive healthcare. The money i get taxed for healthcare (which yes, it is quite a bit every month) is not for my healthcare. It goes to pay for the healthcare of those who are elderly and retired, and those who can not afford healthcare. Possibly i could use it when i get more elderly, maybe, that’s debatable. To purchase healthcare for myself, yes i have to pay again, but what i paid the 1st time was not for me. ---
**Author:** ![Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pilgrim_Shadow)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/187 "2017-05-05T05:04:41Z")
I don’t wanna be a repeater pencil, so forgive me if somebody else mentioned this. There is the litigious issue. Take the guy who fell off the bar stool. The old Mayberry RFD thing to do would be haul him out back, give him a once over for injuries, dunk his head in a pan of ice water, and send him home. That will work 99.999% of the time. But if it turns out the guy was having a stroke, you’ll get your tail feathers sued off. So, as the bartender, you call the ambulance so they can’t say you didn’t try and help. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/188 "2017-05-05T10:42:40Z")
Around a month ago I smashed my elbow; this was at night. The right arm hung useless and the broken bones scraped each other. The ambulance took a long time, but eventually I was in hospital and in the early morning had a 3-hour operation, with extra inserted metalware there. 2 nights in hospital with loads of drugs and now casts and fortnightly visits to the hospital. I will not get any bill for any of these things. So I’m grateful for the NHS in Britain. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/189 "2017-05-05T11:33:33Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Ones where EMTs get a paycheck? :rolleyes: Right. Because in all European countries, EMT work just for fun, like the doctors at the Hospital. (Hint: I Show my insurance Card, the Hospital bills the health insurance, everybody gets paid). Between Christmas and New Year, I had an unexpected Grand Mal while in a Restaurant with friends. Ambulance was called, I was taken to a Hospital late at evening, and released the following day. Guess how much I had to pay\*? Come on guess? For ambulance ride, getting a preventive solution, getting an EEG, being seen by a doctor, getting medicine, staying in a Hospital bed and breakfast and lunch. 20 Euros - fixed rate of 10 Euros per day. - Though I walked out of the Hospital forgetting to stop at the cashier, so a week later I got a letter “You are late in paying your bill!” ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/190 "2017-05-05T11:41:19Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > There are no countries in which people don’t pay for emergency evaluation/treatment/transport. > > The ones with “free” EMT service just don’t get hit with a big bill for it all at once.\* > > \*unlike those who lack adequate health insurance. European countries don’t exist? There is this Thing called “Health insurance (Done properly)” that pays for things, in order that each Patient does not get hit with a big bill at all, just with a monthly affordable rate. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/191 "2017-05-05T11:44:51Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > And it’s an old and not black-and-white debate in society (all societies) about when it’s best for everyone to pay for a service and when it should be paid by the people who directly benefit from it. Such as whether to pay for a new bridge using transportation budget money or a toll on the bridge. Actually, most European (= non-American) societies recognize and understand in General the Need for a Society to pay for commonly used infrastructures. There is no debate about “having a working health insurance”; there is a debate on “which procedures and diseases should be paid for, and which are eligible” - and that’s done based on experts opinion of severity of the issue, success rate of the Treatment etc. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/192 "2017-05-05T11:49:15Z")
> [@bump](#): > > You’re right, actually. > > First, like others have said, they don’t rifle through your pockets to see if you can pay- they take you to the ER, who will also treat you without regard for your ability to pay. > > Then they send you and/or your insurance carrier the bills. If you have no insurance or can’t pay, you can usually negotiate at that point. Except for the many Horror stories of People who were innocently involved in an accident, received Treatment, and are now in deep debt, without ability to pay for further Treatment necessary for full recovery (and because not full recovered, unable to work, further complicating things), because for some reason the insurance of the car Driver who ran them over is not obliged to pay for the health Treatment of the victims. Over here, full Treatment for recovery Comes first, and then the official health insurance in their own time can sue against the car Drivers insurance to recover the costs. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/193 "2017-05-05T11:51:55Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > it is free to the user, what evidence do you have that it is not. I break my leg…an ambulance comes…no bill is ever issued. What part of that is not free? Ah well, it’s that funny American thinking - nothing is free because somewhere, somebody has to pay for it! Through taxes, which are THE HORROR! Free citizens are unfree if they are forced to pay taxes, much better to let People die horribly instead. (Or something similar that usually Comes up in threads like These. It’s like “Education isn’t free because somebody has to PAY TAXES for University, the Horror! Much better to let them run up five-figure debts!”) ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/194 "2017-05-05T11:56:09Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > Do you have a cite for this? This was featured rather extensivly on the News and on this board some years back: fire dept. was called to a rural housefire, after the “protection fee” had been introduced some time back in that area. Once the firefighters established that no neighbouring house was in danger, but that the house owner hadn’t paid, they stood around and watched the house burn down. The house owner wanted to pay the fee on the spot, but they refused, explicitly stating they wanted to make an example, because otherwise everybody would only pay in case of fire. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/195 "2017-05-05T12:00:58Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > :eek: > Fuck. Please tell me the police is a service. Or they make you pay for that as well. Police are free because where else are you issued Military-grade weapons and can shoot black People without being punished at all? > [@](#): > > What about prisons? Do the inmates have to pay for the costs of their incarceration? There are private prisons; and prisoners are put to work there as new “slavery under different Name”. A movie was made recently [13th (film) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film)) showing the development of the 13th amendment (forbidding slavery) to a System of specifically putting blacks in prison and to work on chain gangs in the south, prison factories in the rest. There’s also prison for debt, just like in the times of Charles Dickens! And fees get added on top nilly-willy, for paying late (because you are too broke to pay the first fee…), again targeting mostly poor People. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/196 "2017-05-05T12:06:05Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > FFS, Brits. Why is it that every time healthcare comes up, the British ignore the fact that we have insurance? You pay a little bit out of every paycheck. In return, you get free healthcare. I pay a little bit out of every paycheck. In return, I get…well, not free, but 90% off in most cases. > > [89%](http://www.gallup.com/poll/190484/uninsured-rate-lowest-eight-year-trend.aspx) of Americans have insurance. Some good, some bad. I paid a total of about $4,500 to have a baby. My prescription is $3/month. Doctor visits are $20. For most of us, it’s Not. That. Bad. That’s only after the Major shift from Obamacare, though. Before - and now if AHCA = Trumpcare passes the Senate, too, at least 28 mil. Americans will become uninsured. Obamacare fixed insurances that denied People because of pre-existing conditions, or People who had insurance plans that didn’t cover anything, or … Here [A Zero B.S. Guide To American Healthcare | Cracked.com](http://www.cracked.com/blog/a-zero-b.s.-guide-to-american-healthcare/) are numbers and Graphs about the real Situation of US healthcare. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/197 "2017-05-05T12:08:09Z")
The guy didn’t offer to pay the price of fighting a fire on the spot. He agreed to pay the price for a potential possible fire. That’s far, far less than the price of an actual fire. Given the system as set up, the fire company had no choice but to refuse, because if they hadn’t, then they’d quickly find themselves unable to fight any fires at all. Which is not to say that that was a good outcome. It wasn’t. But the fault lies entirely with the people who set up the system, not at all with the firefighters. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/198 "2017-05-05T12:10:25Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > If everyone started calling the ambulance and taking ride to the ER in ambulance for fall injury, cuts, broken ankle, stomach pain, pneumonia, bronchitis, sprains, cold, flu, skin abscess, swelling, dehydration so on than there would be no available ambulance to go to any other calls coming in. The Thing is, with a working Health insurance, and a Population that mostly understands how solidarity works, there is no Need to visit the ER because … People are insured enough to go to the Doctor instead for normal Problems! Without paying 500 or 2000 $ copay! ERs are for emergency, and most People understand that abusing the System would hurt them all, because we all pay for it, and there’s no Need to abuse it (except if you are a jerk). ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/199 "2017-05-05T12:13:53Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > So what are the doctors and specialists going to do about is COPD? Is he seeing specialist now and getting treatment or help him deal with his medical symptoms. > > It hard to believe they would be cold and say you have COPD now go home and do nothing for him. Because as has been state in previous discussions, the ER in the US are obligated only to treat life-threatening emergencies without asking for Money first. Once the Situation is stabilized, but the Patient not insured, the ER is finished. Further continuing Treatment, like for disease as COPD, Needs a normal doctor = an insurance. If Roomie doesn’t have a good enough one, he’s … left on his own. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621/200 "2017-05-05T12:20:22Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > The bad side is really long ER wait times and long wait to see specialist and long wait for tests to be done. > > And really bad stories of 6 month waiting list for knee or hip surgery is unheard of in the US. Except if you live where not enough doctors accept your insurance, or you just don’t get a knee surgery because your insurance doesn’t cover it, but caps at 2000 $. Here are some Facts not myths [5 Myths About Canadian Health Care](http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-03-2012/myths-canada-health-care.html) about Canadian healthcare. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-when-you-call-an-ambulance-for-someone-you-have-to-pay-for-it-need-answer-fast/766621.md?page=11)