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Originally Posted by Coolbreeze
The volunteers do it for other reasons but why should they have to front the bill for fuel etc to perform these rescues.
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Because they choose to. And thank God they opt to do the right thing rather than perform a personal cost-benefit assessment before heading out...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coolbreeze
It is the fault of the emergency services that they do not send the patients insurance company a bill for services rendered or the cost of materials used. it is a billable item.
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And when the patient has no insurance and you and I are paying for it anyway? It's a slippery slope toward something that would cost more to manage than we would ever benefit from.
Can you imagine the litigation involved as each side pads and dissects the cost -- why were x State Troopers called when only y had a role... You charged me x dollars for y gallons of JP6, when the cost at the time was... A blackhawk wasn't necessary, and for x% of the cost you could have used ground hikers... It would never end!! It might be great for the lawyers and insurance companies, but for the rest of us?
It's the nature of where we live. For centuries, people have found themselves in a bad spot and have needed to be plucked off the side of a white mountain, dragged out of the frozen lake, or simply rescued from a burning home. And we do it because it's the right thing to do, and if we didn't, they would die. It's kind of scary that we might start to look at these things in terms of billable items.