$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.

A Night's Thoughts on Treating Drug Abusers

   Okay, one side wants to punish the drug users, and the other wants to treat them. I say, let's mix the two and come up with the answer.
   I'm only talking of the drug user and pusher who has no other crimes, the drug user and pusher who has no background of violence.
   Lock 'em up, but make it in a home, instead of a prison. We'll go ahead and put as many as 20 of them in one of these homes. I normally don't like allowing inmates to interact with other inmates, thinking they need good influences, not bad, and thinking they are likely to be influenced by the company they keep.
   But, we will operate from the assumption that simple drug use is not a fatal character flaw, and let them live together.
   Each home will have a work area, where a product is made, with the inmates being the workers for maybe six hours each day. I believe work should be part of the reformation of a person. We won't care if the candies or whatever produced in the prison are marketed successfully, only that our prisoner is allowed to work.
   So, how do I mean it when I say we will mix prison with treatment? Our "prison guards" will be social workers. We'll have two to three for each 20-person unit. They will supervise the work, and then they will provide treatment when the work is done. Treatment will include character training. Oh, it can include 12-step programs, counseling, and other such things, but character training will also be part of it. Teaching them right from wrong will be part of it.
   Educating them, period, will be part of it. Whether they study astronomy or whatever, education will be in each facility.
   It will be somewhat of a lock-up facility, with no windows to crawl out of, and no unapproved visitors allowed. But, visitation will be encouraged. During visitation hours, additional workers will be brought in -- one per inmate -- to monitor to ensure no drugs are passed. No physical contact (handshakes, hugs, etc.) with the inmates will be allowed in order to facilitate watching them against drugs being given to them. We will encourage visits from community volunteers who can provide good role modeling for those in our treatment centers.

Justice for the Drug User Might Get a Makeover

   What of today's news, bringing word Utah is considering changing simple possession from a felony to a misdemeanor, and reducing sentences for drug charges?
   Backers like the idea, suggesting drugs are a health issue, not a criminal matter, and wondering why we tie up our prison system with drug offenders. An estimate 25 percent of Utah's prison population is there simply for drugs. (That estimate comes from the Utah Department of Corrections executive director.)
   Free them and treat them? Is that the answer? My first thoughts include that this is more than a social welfare issue. Drugs should be illegal. I wonder how effective treatment is, and I wonder if society should pay for it.
   If it truly does take them off drugs, then perhaps so, for reducing the number of those on drugs would be a wonderful thing.
   I consider what I've thought best for drug charges in the past, and think I still might like those thoughts. I would place them in homes, with camera-watch supervision. Call it prison, if you like, but it would be a different form. To reduce the chances of drugs being given them, their visitors would be limited, with visits being monitored by the cameras and audio transmissions. For the moment, I pause in what I would do from there. Would I still allow them work release? I almost believe that a must, but wonder how to monitor them when they are out in their jobs.

The to be or not to be of Climate Change

   There is global warming, you know, for the ten warmest years in the 132-year history of tracking average world temperatures have all occurred since 1998.
  But, then again, there actually is no global warming, for Oct. 1, marked the 18th straight year of no significant warming treads in surface average temperatures.
   But, yes, like I already told you, there is global warming. The melting Antarctic proves it. Scientists say the melt will result in a 4-12 foot rise in sea levels, enough to submerge much of New York City.
   But, no, it all depends on how you look at it, and there really is no global warming, at least not everywhere, for in some places, temperatures are falling. For example in certain areas near the Andes, temperatures fell from 1910 to 1980, then held steady for about 10 years.
   Yes, there is global warming. We told you about the Antarctica melting? Well, gravity is also weakening at the earth's poles, right where the ice is melting.
   No, no, no no. Again, there is no global warming, for we are on a 20-year trend of colder winters in the United States.
 Yes, there is global warming. "I believe global warming and climate change are real threats to our planet," says Andrew Cuomo.
  No, there is no global warming. Christopher Monckton, who once advised Margaret Thatcher, says real world climate sensitivity is very much below estimates. "Perhaps, therefore, there is no climate crisis at all," Monckton said. ". . . The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing."
   Yes, there will be massive global warming. Maybe this is what scripture referred to when it spoke of, "that great day when the earth shall be rolled together as a scroll, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." (Mormon 9:2)
   No, for the scripture says, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." (Genesis 8:22)

(Index -- Climate change info)

Less Standardization Could be a Plus in Education

   Let the teacher take the wheel, then. Instead of becoming more and more standardized, I wonder if our education should become less structured.
   Keep all the testing that measures you against other schools, if you like. Let that remain standardized. But, let each school set its own course. Especially let the teacher be the one setting the course. If a teacher has their own way of going about doing something, and it is good, then by all means let them set their own course.
   We often get excited about our own ideas more than about ideas that are handed to us. Let the teacher select the textbook, even though it means some textbooks for the same course might be different right within the same school.
    Give the schools a touch more freedom in what they teach. Maybe some high schools will forgo algebra, altogether. I'm not so sure that would be all so bad.
   What is important, is that the education expands the student's knowledge in ways that will be beneficial when it comes time to moving into a career. Let some schools be more science oriented while other schools choose to emphasize the arts or history.

To Measure a Man,You Must Know How He Measures Others

   The measurement of a man is in how well he treats others. If he treats them well, he is great. But, if he scorns others, and picks at them, and finds faults, he not so great.
   In the words of Joseph Fielding Smith:
   "I believe it is our solemn duty to love one another, to believe in each other, to have faith in each other, that it is our duty to overlook the faults and failings of each other, and not to magnify them in our own eyes, nor before the eyes of the world. There should be no faultfinding, no back-biting, no evil speaking one against another in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
   Jesus taught a modern prophet, "If ye are not one, ye are not mine." (Doctrine and Covenants 38:27)
   So it is, then, that to measure a man, you must know how he measures others.