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Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

tomscott.com

321–330 of 440 posts

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmmm. 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. I'm not sure I want the same "protect at all costs" attitude extended to buildings, but fire can definitely spread and even if they don't care about your property they might care about other places.

Not true. An emergency department in the US is obligated to provide life-saving care, as are EMS services and hospital doctors if the ER doc thinks you have an immediately life threatening condition . But a random oncologist has no obligation to treat you if you have a life-threatening cancer, unless you go to an ER and they determine that your condition is immediately life-threatening (say, a perforated bowel). Then…

Well, quite obviously I meant emergency care, since I'm comparing it to a burning building.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#322

Even with this information included. I think the moral of the story is America has some very serious third-world problems. The reason things like this go on in America and not in any other developed country is that Americans just accept it. "They didn't pay, so they die." Here is how much they accept it, firefighters literally stood and watched a building burn down instead of playing with their toys. Not only that, t…

> I think the moral of the

> story is America has some

> very serious third-world

> problems.

That's true, and that's true of other first-world nations, too. America has plenty of problems. However, this fire brigade isn't one of them. It they work through insurance then, if you havent paid the insurance, you shouldn't be suprised when they don't put out your fire.

I was a volunteer fire fighter for a while, and I did it because 1.) I'm kind of an idiot about danger, and 2.) I think it's important to help others.

There are many other people in the US that will go to ridiculous lengths to help others.

> Not only that, the fire department

>refused to accept money to put it out.

It that's how it's supposed to work? Your building catches fire, the F.D. rolls up, and you hand them $75 right there? Are they supposed to carry cash in case you don't have exact change? Set up a stripe account so they can take credit or debit?

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#323

Even with this information included. I think the moral of the story is America has some very serious third-world problems. The reason things like this go on in America and not in any other developed country is that Americans just accept it. "They didn't pay, so they die." Here is how much they accept it, firefighters literally stood and watched a building burn down instead of playing with their toys. Not only that, t…

> I think the moral of the > story is America has some > very serious third-world > problems. That's true, and that's true of other first-world nations, too. America has plenty of problems. However, this fire brigade isn't one of them. It they work through insurance then, if you havent paid the insurance, you shouldn't be suprised when they don't put out your fire. I was a volunteer fire fighter for a while, and I di…

No post body was provided.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing is they're using the UK which is literally going nuts over the state of the NHS. The UK is extremely unhappy with the backlogs. And almost certainly they'll be getting reduced once a new goverment is voted in during the next general election. The really funny part, I bet a lower percentage of the captia die from cancer in the UK than the US. Because they can get some sort of treatment. And of course a…

> The really funny part, I bet a lower percentage of the captia die from cancer in the UK than the US. The US, quite famously, generally has the highest cancer survival rates in the world. The standard bearers for cancer survival rates in Europe have traditionally been Switzerland and France, which are close to the same level as the US. A decade ago in the UK there was a public outcry when studies showed it had one o…

sincere question about medical costs of that cancer survival: it seems like a standard thing to compare. if we just look at the non-experimential stuff, is there something interesting? are US treatments better? even if adjusted for costs? can we even compare them somehow? purchasing power parity, sure, and cost breakdown of states/regions, differences in coding, market sizes and thus market efficiency, regulatory compliance costs, cancer base rate (age, obesity, socioeconomic status, air quality, other factors) ... ?

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#325
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Do they have a public healthcare system? Nope. What sort of society doesn't look after it's own? Do they have police who have a duty to save you? Nope. That alone is just an absolute shit show. What sort of country says the police have no obligation to protect you? Only to show up and solve the crime once it's happened? What sort of society doesn't look after it's own? I could carry on but it's a bit pointles…

German here. We do have a public healthcare system. That we can opt out of and go private. The trade-off is it being increasingly hard to get back into the public one, especially as people get older and thus more "expensive". Insurances (including fire service or roadside assistance) has to be payed. You cannot just opt back into it once you need it. If parent is right and they had chances to opt into fire service bu…

This is interesting, when you say "increasingly hard to get back into", what are you referring to?

What is the rising cost of going back to being on the public system?

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect you would find services limited in the middle of the Arabian desert as well. The United States is enormous and many parts of it are incredibly sparsely populated. For example, Niobrara County in Wyoming has a population of 2,467 and an area of 6,810 km^2, or a population density of 0.36/km^2. For comparison, the Northern Borders province, the least dense province in Saudi Arabia, has as population density o…

Then perhaps the core issue is zoning land properly and making sure people don't spread out too thin. That being said, the locality in question sounds very much like the low density suburban locale that I'm currently living in. It costs a pretty penny for the government to maintain services here, since there are only about 100 homes in an area at the edge of the desert (which at a rate of 75 per home per month as sta…

> making sure people don't spread out too thin.

Or you could just let people live where they want to live and make sure they are aware of and agree to the consequences of that choice, which it sounds like they were in this case.

> If our forebears had such sensible foresight and collective responsibility, then why not America today?

Seems like you're generalizing an awful lot from one random news article that is news largely by virtue of the fact that what it describes is unusual.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#328

Even with this information included. I think the moral of the story is America has some very serious third-world problems. The reason things like this go on in America and not in any other developed country is that Americans just accept it. "They didn't pay, so they die." Here is how much they accept it, firefighters literally stood and watched a building burn down instead of playing with their toys. Not only that, t…

No. People _seek out_ unincorporated land _because_ they don't want to be beholden to city services or any of the trappings of civilization. It's like Texas as a whole, opted out of power-grid interconnection with the rest of the country, specifically so they could deregulate their industry.

And when the consequences of their actions came calling, the rest of civilization stared, agape and aghast.

Here's the question though: Should it be legal for people to opt out of these things? Can they be forced to comply? If your answer is "no sane person would opt out of fire insurance", I would agree. But sanity is in short supply in the US lately.

I would argue that it's not a question of laws in isolation, it's a question of laws perverted by brainwashed people acting against their own self-interest because they've been sold a tribal identity of exceptionalism, by America's enemies, for the purpose of weakening America, and it is working better than they possibly could have dreamed.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#329

Even with this information included. I think the moral of the story is America has some very serious third-world problems. The reason things like this go on in America and not in any other developed country is that Americans just accept it. "They didn't pay, so they die." Here is how much they accept it, firefighters literally stood and watched a building burn down instead of playing with their toys. Not only that, t…

>The reason things like this go on in America and not in any other developed country is that Americans just accept it. "They didn't pay, so they die."

Your argument is based on a false premise. Nobody died. In a life/death situation, the fire fighters will do whatever is necessary to attempt to save lives, but they aren't worried about a structure that a homeowner chose not to protect.

In your country, if someone chooses not to insure a home, will the government rebuild it for free? What's the difference? I'm assuming the non-indigent case where someone can afford to pay the insurance. If someone is indigent they probably don't own a house. If it is government housing, then it of course would be rebuilt by the government.

There are plenty of problems in the US, but you have greatly exaggerated this particular issue.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#330
post #319
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trains in Xinjiang compare very favourably with those in the US. The media paints a very one-sided picture of what life is like there; not to defend the CCP's awful actions, but if the way certain communities in St Louis get treated were reported the same way...

>Xinjiang compare very favourably with those in the US https://www.chinahighlights.com/china-trains/urumqi-lanzhou-... LOL, keep spreading that propaganda comrade!

All I was saying was that the easiest argument to shut down a discussion is to invoke the fact that "America is huge". Nothing can be done, bc it's huge, end of story.
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