$1,900 for an Ambulance Ride Across Town?

   I wonder if we victimize people with our ambulance system, if we victimize victims.
   I just go my bill for my ride across town, $1,898.55. I do find mself wondering why it would cost $1,900 for a trip to the hospital.
   Because the EMTs are trained? True, they are. Bless them. So, perhaps charge me $50 an hour for each and send me six. Charge me for half an hour. That's $150.
    Or, is the bill so high because of the equipment? They placed a breathing tube down my throat. How much expense would that be? When they picked me up, I tried to convince them not to make me lie on my back as I did not want to drown in my own blood from all the blood pouring into my mouth. But, now was not the time to reinvent the ambulance ride. They explained to me that rather than have my lay on my stomach, they would place the breathing tube down my throat and I'd still be able to breathe.
  As soon as I laid back, I passed out. They needed to hook me up to an assortment of items, and therein lies some of the bill. There's $52.85 for O2 Oxygen, $85.25 for O2-vent circuit with peep, $10.66 for thermoeter cover, $41.85 for O2-ETCO2 Adapter, $74.68 for IV pump set-reg, $55.38 for EKG pads, and $28.03 for "disposable care" (blood wraps?).
  It is good that they cared for me, but seeing they've already itemized my expenses, where comes the rest of the bill? Where comes the largest two items? They're billing me $284.85 for mileage and $1,265 for "ALS1 GC emergency." What's that? If I've already paid for everything but the EMT personnel, which I suppose I believe ought to be closer to $150, where comes these two charges?
   Do a hurting person a favor, and don't charge $285 for "mileage." By charging such, it is clear you are not looking so much to help a person who is hurting, but for a way to make a buck off the person who is hurting. This is not a person you should be looking to run up a bill on, but a person you should be wanting to help.
  The $1,265 for "ALS1 GC emergency"? Whatver that is, it sounds like something you shouldn't want to charge someone if that someone is someone you are just wanting to help, instead of making a buck off them.
   Is some of the expense due to liability insurance? Actually, I don't hear of many lawsuits against ambulance firms. This, though, might fit into another blog. Sufficient to say, for now, I don't think we should allow liability insurance to be such a massive expense, if it is, in fact, a large chunk of the bill.
   Bottom line, to me, seems to be that if a person has no choice but to take your ride, you can charge them as much as you like. Run up a bill on them, for what are they going to say? With their life of the line, they can't exactly turn your ride down. You've got them in a corner. So, if you want to charge an extortionary fee. . .
   Isn't this victimizing people you should not be victimizing? They are victims when you pick them up, and you victimize them some more.
   Bless the EMTs for working in a difficult profession. It is not them I have a beef with. Bless them for the care and for getting folks like me to the emergency room. And, when they go home at the end of the day, I doubt it is they who have made an overly amount.
   But, somewhere in there is someone making an awful lot of money off people in pain. No, I don't like the way we've set up our ambulance service, and, yes, I do think we should change it. If there is a person sitting back, just making a buck for owning a franchise, I think we should cut them out. Bless them, for allthey do to save lives, but the ambulance system probably would go right on working well without franchise owners and others garnering money off this system. This might be a time when it makes more sense to have government provide the service instead of private companies.