51–60 of 440 posts
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Seems like the agreement could be backed with the threat of a lien on your property.
The property that just burned down?
I didn't realize this was even an assertion that people made at all. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. People at the time must have known that fires in cities were extremely dangerous because they could spread over a great area. It's logical that insurers would want to work together to prevent all fires, purely out of self-interest to protect their insured properties, and then sue the pants off negligent and/or u…
But then what is the incentive for anyone to get coverage if they know that any fires will be put out regardless...? Unless the fire service is paired with insurance covering the cost of a rebuild? But I don't think the original fire services offered that.
The incentives are very clear, if nobody does it, no fire brigades will exist. (I can also imagine other reasons, e g. membership might have been required by some law or by association.) And in the end every fire which is extinguished is a fire which didn't spread.
Just some little aside, today there are people who do firefighting for free. What are the incentives for that?
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Article doesn't seem to agree with you here, instead citing different reason: > South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire.
dantheman was proposing agreeing to pay the full cost (tens of thousands of dollars), not just the advance fee ($75).
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> I mean, yes, but doctors will still save your life even if you declined to buy any insurance all life long or pay taxes or whatever So will firefighters. They'll save your life to the best of their ability, no matter any contracts, payments, taxes, etc. Saving your house is another matter.
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Neighbourhood is the operative word here. In some parts of the rural United States, homes are far away and far between. Public services of the kind expected in populated areas are impractical, particularly for protection of property rather than life.
With that as a baseline, some "rural" areas maintain this peculiar, low-cost characteristic even as they become more populated. There's a degree of self-sorting behaviour as well, since some residents become attracted to the area specifically for its vanishingly small local tax burden.
And here we are in modern times where we do, indeed, let buildings burn. > No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn > Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna39516346
> South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire.
Also it says that this TN guy had insurance. I wonder if it would have been worth his insurance company's while to make sure that $75 was always paid, either by paying it themselves, or making him pay it, or paying it and sending him the bill, and somehow making it a condition.. to protect themselves from having to pay out... as the London article is about insurance companies starting fire brigades themselves for that very reason
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But people complain about this too. No one seriously talks about not treating people in the ER with gun wounds, but Obamacare explicitly introduced the mandate that you get insurance or pay a penalty to address this very issue. Everyone is entitled to a basic level of care, but the mandate says that you should have to pay for it.
The Obamacare penalty for not buying insurance was eliminated by Trump, because reintroducing the free rider problem is a cornerstone of GOP health policy. Reinstating the penalty is going to cost political goodwill, which is why the Dems aren't doing it. Regardless of whether the penalty is or is not in place, I wouldn't recommend being poor and sick, regardless of whether you are insured, or are freeloading.
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If it wasn't a gov agency, something could have been worked out on the spot. Ask them if they want to pay the full price, what is it $10k, $20k?. If you don't pay, you'd have the lowest priority. But there is no reason other than bureaucracy that they couldn't have handled it.
Do people have that cash lying around, what guarantee would you have that people would pay? Maybe you can take the deed to the house that you saved?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Article doesn't seem to agree with you here, instead citing different reason: > South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire.
dantheman was proposing agreeing to pay the full cost (tens of thousands of dollars), not just the advance fee ($75).
And here we are in modern times where we do, indeed, let buildings burn. > No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn > Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna39516346
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