Good man with a gun missing again.

[voice]

6 dead, at least 10 injured in shooting in downtown Sacramento, Calif.
www.cbc.ca/news/world/shooting-sacramento-victims-1.6406836

Guns are stupid

[mids]

California though. Socialist Republic. That's why Andy fled.

[wetkingcanute]

That is a terrible thing to happen to anyone.

Andy - in these situations - when people are taken to hospital by ambulance - if they have no medical insurance are they invoiced for the ambulance trip and medical care?

[mids]

I think they find out on the way to the hospital and tip them out if they have no insurance.

[flatandy]

I genuinely have no idea what the answer is. Someone told me recently that an ambulance ride in the US costs on average something around $10,000. I think the number must be wrong because I'm sure I'd heard $1500 or so before. Which is still outrageous. Doubly so because a lot of ambulance companies don't take the insurance of particular patients - a truly nutty system where you have to hope that the ambulance company and your insurance company already have an agreement. Or, I suppose, as you're lying on the ground in a pool of blood you could call around and shop around to make sure you get picked up by the right ambulance service.

My guess is that you get collected by whoever the ambulance is, they make sure they have all your info, and you get dropped off. And then you get an invoice later. That you almost certainly have to pay a big lump of cash if you were unlucky enough to get shot. A double whammy.

[mids]

I suppose this is what you get when you disband the police as per blm demands.

[voice]

Nah, the cops never took you to hospital, so you were always gonna get charged. In fact I suspect the cops would have charged you if they did, so not really a problem

[flatandy]

Apr 3, 2022 17:49:09 GMT wetkingcanute said:

That is a terrible thing to happen to anyone.

Andy - in these situations - when people are taken to hospital by ambulance - if they have no medical insurance are they invoiced for the ambulance trip and medical care?

So, having done some asking around, it appears to be slightly different.

Some ambulances are publicly owned, and some privately owned. And most emergency ambulances dealing with stuff like this - rather than just transporting sick people from one facility to another - are public. And they are much less diligent about pursuing payment, particularly from the uninsured. There are also heavily capped payments from Medicare (public funded health for the elderly) and Medicaid (public funded health for the poor) - people on those programs pay nothing and the government pays the ambulance service those fees. Which is one reason the few people who actually pay end up paying so much. They’re basically subsidising everyone else.

The same seems to apply to emergency medical care. You’ll probably go to a public hospital as they’re the ones with emergency facilities. And they’ll generally not care too much about chasing payment from people who probably struggle to pay when they can instead get the money through the standard route of other peoples’ insurance.

It’s utterly comical and irrational and stupid, but slightly less horrific in outcome than I’d thought. The worst part is that the people who are insured will probably be on the hook for co-pays (which is basically what Brits call deductibles).

[mids]

Some places seem to double up their fire brigade and ambulance service. Queer.

[Repat Van]

Australia, bizarrely, is also* a developed country where you are charged for ambulances.

Not in all states. Just most of them so you need to make sure it’s covered by your insurance or get chased by debt collectors.






*I shouldn’t really say “also” as the USA is not a developed country.

[flatandy]

Lots of places do. It does my head in that the ambulances say “fire department” on them. And it appears that people who want to become firemen will find that the easiest route is to train to become a paramedic. It’s not completely irrational to have a medic on a fire engine in case someone in the fire is injured. But there are fire-ambulances that have no firemen on them and just have the medics. And it’s weird.

[wetkingcanute]

Thanks for that info andy - as you say it is still a bit fcuked up.