The Democrats held their caucus on Monday. Not too surprisingly, they nominated Mayor Marty Petrovic to be their nominee for mayor. Then they nominated Debra Watkin for one of the open trustee seats. Then they nominated one person after another for the other trustee seat, and each time the nominee would refuse. (nobody nominated your humble servant) Finally Blake Reed asked about the duties of job, and was convince that it might not be too bad. Don Ellis nominated him, and he accepted. Yay. We have a full slate.
The Republicans have nominated John White for mayor, and Matthew Taylor for one of the trustee spots, and they have asked incumbent Debbie Nottke to run again for trustee.
That’s about it for the unbiased reporting. Regular readers here might know that I am becoming disillusioned with the Democrats on our Village Board for one major reason. So if you are a Libertarian or a “moderate” Democrat that wants to hear no evil about your beloved party, then read no further.
Mayor Petrovic, and the other two “moderate” Democrats on the Board recently voted to move forward towards instituting a fee for service EMS
I asked Mayor Petrovic,
An American Heart Association study concluded that low income heart attack victims were less likely to use the EMS in municipalities where the service was billed for. These people will not know the intricacies of you’re billing procedures, but they might well know that you bill. Question, how many victims of heart attack, stroke, asthmatic attacks, epileptic seizures , etc., would have to die, in order to convince you that you have made a terrible mistake?
Here is his answer, interspersed with my rebuttal.
Well, first off there has to be a supposition that people will die from that………
Yes, I have made that supposition.
I read that article thoroughly through and I wouldn’t necessarily concur that that was the only factor……
Of course not, I didn’t say it was the only factor. If you read the article thoroughly through, did you catch this part,
“Of interest is the fact that the presence of an EMS prepayment system increased EMS use. One other study documented a similar increase among residents of lower income census blocks.”
We have the ultimate prepayment system — a taxpayer supported single payer system.
In fact that wasn’t a major factor why people wouldn’t use the system………..
the paper absolutely does not say that fear of a bill is not a major factor
Though it could be a factor………..
OK, now we’re getting somewhere. You admitted that it could be a factor. Now the question is how much of a factor is too much? That’s why I asked how many people would have to die. That’s a rude question, I know, but it has to be asked. We’re not talking sidewalk maintenance here. This is a life and death issue, the most important issue in front of the board, and no one wanted to talk about it at the caucus (weird). So please, let’s think about how much of a factor is too much. What if 1% of the 600 calls per year, didn’t call for fear of the bill and died. Whoa, that’s 6 corpses per year, that’s not acceptable. How about 1/2 of 1%, that would be 3 dead constituents, no I don’t think you would like that. Let’s try .0025 x 600 = 1.5 hmmm….. Is that about right? Do you think possibly 1/4 of 1% of the 600 calls per year might not call for fear of a bill and die? I do. Is it worth it? Should we sacrifice 1.5 lives per year in order to save the average taxpayer around $30/year? No. And besides, the taxpaying public as a whole would save nothing, because the insurance companies will raise premiums to cover the new expense, and they will add profit, so you are undeniably increasing the cost to society.
and I think that if we finally go through with billing, that we are going to try to notify the public what that really means, and for people without insurance, we are going to try our best to inform them that they are not going to get a bill and that’s not a reason not to call the ambulance.
The Mayor knows, I’m sure, how hard it is to disseminate this kind of information. The average resident knows very little about their municipal government, and if you succeed in spreading the word to some small percentage of them, they will forget over time. More importantly, you are not addressing the important aspect of the underinsured as opposed to the uninsured. The underinsured have large deductibles and most likely would often have to pay the full $900 cost, out of pocket, for a ride to the hospital. I raised this issue at one of your Village Board meetings and it seemed to be the opinion of the board that you were unwilling to subsidize this cost, leaving a large percentage of the district having to worry about the cost before making the call.
and so I’m hoping you’re wrong, and it’s like the question, are you still beating your wife, and I’m not going to answer it in that context,……………
The only way that it could be analogous to the question “are you still beating your wife” is if I had a scientific study that indicated that you probably were beating your wife. In that case I would probably notify the Sheriff’s department, and not make a political issue of it, since it’s not as much of a community issue. When someone asks the question, “are you still beating your wife” they are putting someone on the spot, but you must accept most of the responsibility for the spot you are on, because you voted to move forward with the process of going to a fee for service EMS, and then ran for office.
… because this is an important issue, but I don’t think the information is as concrete as you would like to have it on whether people are going to call or not. And we believe, and we’ve heard from people both professional and that have done ambulance service, and they don’t believe that that is a reason why people won’t call, and we’re hoping and we’re trusting their opinion.
Yes, I know that you have anecdotal testimony supporting your position. I have an equal amount of anecdotal testimony supporting mine. I recorded some of it which was given by our own volunteers, at the public forum and I posted it on my blog at
http://trumansburgambulance.blogspot.com/2008/06/public-hearing-on-billing-for.html
But I have gone beyond anecdotes and found epidemiological studies which indicate (as common sense would) that a person without a good insurance policy, and without a lot of cash on hand, might hesitate to call 911 when they aren’t completely sure whether their condition is life threatening or not, if they know that the call could cost them $900.
The article, which was published in 2000 in “Circulation” the journal of the American Heart Association is posted on my blog at
http://trumansburgambulance.blogspot.com/2009/10/resources-ems-billing.html
By the way, the American Heart Association was founded in 1915. You can read about their peer review process on their website at
http://www.americanheart.org
Several other interesting resources are there as well.
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