There should be an "Uberlance" - discount emergency pickups by Uber, at Uber prices.
Uber is already “Uberlance”. Most people take Ubers to the hospital unless they are literally dying (and some even then).
Why American ambulance rides are so expensive
51–60 of 536 posts
Re: Why American ambulance rides are so expensive
#52Check your insurance to make sure you have transport. It's the same in Switzerland - it's an extra line on your insurance. My wife and also have Rega. They can't legally call it insurance but if we get injured in, for example, the USA they will send us a private hospital jet to bring us home.
And then do what, precisely? Quit your job and find one with better insurance options?
This comment is confusing because it refers to the first paragraph and also assumes when you checked your insurance you didn't find transport there. Since the parent did have transport and good insurance and a second paragraph, it sounds like you're asking "And then do what after your hospital jet flies you home, quit your job and find better insurance?"
Re: Why American ambulance rides are so expensive
#53As much as I like articles that tries to use economics or finance to explain stuff, the "options" analogy is a bit hamfisted. The article starts off by noting about how ambulance is an "option" for a rescue, but even though the analogy might vaguely work, it's not really needed to answer the question. That can be answered far more simply: "medicare and insurance companies pay them too little, so they have to charge e…
"Medicare pays too little" is based on the "fee for service" model; it only makes sense if you believe the group of people who actually use the ambulance should pay its full cost. The options model matters: if you model an ambulance ride as a roulette wheel, you only expect to pay if you get very unlucky. If you model it as an option, you expect to pay even if you never use it. The former doesn't imply "everyone else…
>The options model matters: if you model an ambulance ride as a roulette wheel, you only expect to pay if you get very unlucky. If you model it as an option, you expect to pay even if you never use it.
There are plenty of services that have high fixed costs but low marginal costs, but we don't use the "options" framing. A movie costs tens to hundreds of millions to make, but otherwise costs very little to deliver. Their price are also fixed, rather than dynamically priced. Yet when a movie bombs, nobody is like "wow I guess they shouldn't have been selling an option for 2 hours of entertainment for $20!". It's a price problem, first and foremost, caused by insurance companies and medicare strongarming them.
Re: Why American ambulance rides are so expensive
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if we fixed it, that might help people who can't afford the ride otherwise. And we cannot have that. --- Says far too many people, always.
But do they really? Can you point a real, evil villain saying that?
See everyone who decries student loan forgiveness as an example.
Re: Why American ambulance rides are so expensive
#55I've treated people with panic disorder who, if there were no cost involved, would probably have called an ambulance monthly for suspected heart attacks.
I wonder how countries with universal healthcare coverage deal with the lack of a (dis)incentive here. Maybe they just eat the cost?
Re: Why American ambulance rides are so expensive
#56We’re all pretending this is an unsolvable problem when really most of the world has solved it by making ambulance (EMS) funding similar to fire and police departments. Somehow in any emergency I’ve seen, all three show up, often EMS before police or fire dept, and somehow that’s a service that has to be supplemented by insurance billings. The blog mentions it, but it’s one of those obvious things that somehow isn’t…
The ambulance that billed me in San Francisco after my accident was run by San Francisco Fire Department.
Re: Why American ambulance rides are so expensive
#57We’re all pretending this is an unsolvable problem when really most of the world has solved it by making ambulance (EMS) funding similar to fire and police departments. Somehow in any emergency I’ve seen, all three show up, often EMS before police or fire dept, and somehow that’s a service that has to be supplemented by insurance billings. The blog mentions it, but it’s one of those obvious things that somehow isn’t…
> most of the world has solved it by making ambulance (EMS) funding similar to fire... About 65% of the more than one million firefighters in the U.S. are volunteers, with nearly 19,000 fire departments being run completely by volunteers.
A pretty large number of EMS is also volunteers. Basically wherever you have a volunteer fire department, you'll have volunteer EMS (if it's there).
Re: Why American ambulance rides are so expensive
#58You don't have to pay them unless they're specific. I got a bill 3 years after being in an accident and I asked them for the documentation they legally have to provide me (itemization, the legal basis, detailed incident record, attempts on their part to contact insurance) of how they arrived at the sum. It's been a year since and they haven't given me anything. Besides this kind of billing is banned in California now…
The last thing I want at that time is to have to reason about any of this. I think I’m realizing that what I cherish about the healthcare system up here is not just that I don’t pay bills, but that I don’t even see a bill. Not that the bankruptcy inducing costs aren’t wretched, but I just cannot even imagine being put into a fucked up bureaucratic hell while my family is in a life altering crisis.
Yea I think this is the bit thats easy to take for granted in nations with rational healthcare systems. Not only do I not get fleeced, but at no point does my healthcare feel like economic activity, a transaction, it feels like healthcare and that the provision of it is being done for the right reasons.
Re: Why American ambulance rides are so expensive
#59I think the answer is very simple. Regulation. If there was no regulation or very little then anyone could open up an ambulance service and the cheapest costs and the best service would win. Unfortunately that’s not the case. It’s like day care. Day care is expensive because the government mandates it to be expensive. Otherwise you’d have grandmas down your street would gladly watch your kid but it’s generally not al…
When you are bleeding out on the street, you don't have time to shop around for the best deal
Re: Why American ambulance rides are so expensive
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
But do they really? Can you point a real, evil villain saying that?
I think we are all villains here. Good healthcare coverage is just another status symbol to be attained. If the poor have it then it becomes less of a value. To some degree we are all wired this way and we all suffer because of it.
I'm not sure I agree. Poor health is not always obvious and your health insurance provider is not conspicuous in most interactions.