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.
When I was taken to the ER by ambulance, it cost roughly $1200 all said and done, and the hospital was willing, even eager to let me pay in $100 monthly installments for the next year- interest free. I got lucky- I had my little trip to the ER, got back, and found a well paying full-time job between then and when the first bill came due. So $100/month wasn’t a huge burden. I imagine had I asked for 24 months at $50, they might have done that as well- they seemed surprisingly happy to hear that someone was willing to pay at all.
Only if it’s a hospital-based ambulance. If it’s a separate entity they would send you their own bill.
Not true, at least in the US. You could potentially be criminally charged with false calls but that’s separate from an ambulance bill for service. Potentially, they don’t even know who called. If you’re at your neighbors & use their phone there is no information to bill you.
Thats the whole point of taxes. I may (I hope) never have to use an ambulance, but the fact I pay municipal rates means that I have confidence that when I need one, I’ll get it and not worry about having to pay.
Serious question, does the fire brigade charge you as well in America?
And $1200 and above for an ambulance ride? What do they have in there, cocaine and hookers?
I know it’s a few years old but I’m sure it’s still relevant…
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.
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?
Nowhere in that article does it mention having to pay for an ambulance. It talks about the internal cost of an ambulance for the NHS, not the billing of patients.
In the UK even if you can truly afford to pay you don’t have to, which part of that don’t you believe?
Society pays for healthcare in many countries through higher taxes so that individuals aren’t forced to assume potentially bankrupting expenses that they have no control over.
Same with firefighting. Same with policing. etc. For the individual recipient, they are free.
Of course the funding has to come from somewhere, as for all services. But the individual doesn’t receive a bill, it is all free at the point of use. Just like schools. I’m sure you wouldn’t quibble over calling elementary school “free”.
You assume incorrectly. In those (vanishingly rare) circumstances the NHS may well put you under greater scrutiny before sending an ambulance in order to make sure that you really do need emergency care but once they do, you aren’t getting a bill. “restricted send” letter or not.
It’s not the norm at all, but there are places where this happens. Either you get a bill for services after using them or you have to pay a subscription in advance. In the latter case, if you have a fire and haven’t paid, they’ll probably come by to save lives or keep the fire from spreading to a neighbor’s property. But they won’t put your house out. Again, this isn’t normal, it’s usually something that happens in very rural areas where there isn’t much in the way of government at all.
There are also a few communities where the fire department charges for responding to vehicle accidents. This is usually in smaller towns where the state routed a major highway through but left the fire and EMS response to the locals as an unfunded mandate.
There are 50 states, PA alone has 67 counties, then numerous towns, townships, boroughs, & municipalities within a county, & many of them have multiple fire depts. In short with so many, I’m sure some might though most don’t.
Do you have a cite for this?
A is in an accident, airbags deploy. This creates much powder"smoke" in the passenger compartment. B is driving along, sees the “smoke” & calls 911 to report an accident with vehicle fire. (You’d be surprised how often this happens in real life). FD arrives, the powder/“smoke” has dissipated/settled & FD is obviously not needed. Why should A get a bill for something they didn’t request or didn’t need?
The next time fire or EMS is dispatched to a call where, ultimately, their service is not needed will hardly be the first time. They’re used to it, it’s part of the job.
My small town in western PA has an all volunteer fire department. Unfortunately, this means that some volunteer fire people are overly-into firefighting (starting blazes when things are slow) and some calls are not answered quickly due to poor response.
We also have a severely understaffed/underpaid police force. Some calls are passed on to the state police. Our police chief was arrested a few years ago when it was discovered he was selling confiscated guns.
This, as I have pointed out earlier in the thread, is not correct. The amount of tax paid for healthcare is higher in the US than in most other developed nations despite US government healthcare only covering a minority of the population.
In the specific case of the NHS, it is tax-funded to the tune of costing 2900 per citizen. Government healthcare in the US costs the US taxpayer 4200 per citizen. Overall, the NHS gets better results in addition to the full coverage.
As for the first part of the statement, “There is no such thing as a free lunch” that seems to assume that things are being run at such a high level of efficiency that different setups cannot provide better results for less money.
This is fairly obviously incorrect as regards the US healthcare system.