Why American ambulance rides are so expensive

Same in Poland. Even uninsured junkies get a free ride.

This is a fine example of coming up with some "plausible" numbers to support a conclusion, but all of the "plausible" numbers are actually wildly incorrect.

A new ambulance will probably run 2-4x what you quoted. Gas/maintenance will not be comparable to a regular automobile; it will be significantly higher. Paramedic wage (though there will probably be more "cheaper" EMTs out there than paramedics) seems right, maybe a little high for some markets. $12k for liability seems shockingly low; I wouldn't be surprised if you're off by an order of magnitude.

Regarding salaries, you're not just paying for the people in the ambulance. You're paying for dispatch, operators, support staff, administration, etc. You're also paying them 24/7, not just for the times that the ambulances are actually making trips.

You also left out the cost of medical supplies and equipment, both of which need to be maintained and replaced.

Come on, across the world we prepay for the use of things regardless if we do or not. As described in the article it's an option, not a political system.

This is just GDP, which isn't that relevant. If you add a million people and only one of them works, GDP will still go up. It doesn't take into account the following:

- no-one's talking about immigration in general. They're talking about mass immigration. So any general "look how immigration can be good" is not addressing the issue.

- mass immigration means that housing becomes scarce, driving up prices. This again makes GDP look good, because stamp duty revenue goes up and so do estate agent fees. But all the many negative externalities, such as everyone is now buying houses 10 years later, and leaning on their parents, and their dwellings are all being subdivided because even a tiny place is now worth renting out or selling, are totally ignored. The housing costs drive every other cost up. Minimum wage / living wage needs to skyrocket just to combat this one thing, both because people need more money to pay for their own accommodation, and people need to afford goods and services that are all also being made more expensive because their salary costs need to increase for the same reason.

- mass immigration spikes up demand for power. Power is often a large capital investment, which means that the country borrows a load of money from Macquarie Group to build it, with lots of interest paid back over decades. Seems to generate GDP as people are being paid to build things; actually a net negative all told over the lifetime of the investment.

- the same as power but for water.

- the same as power but for roads. Traffic and congestion are now being actively managed by computerised systems because there are so many cars on the road.

- the same as power but for pollution. Another negative externality of driving up population for GDP reasons. Every person imported is more pollution generated in and by the local country.

It's important we have young people entering the workforce. But adding more people from external sources is not sustainable. When they all get old do we import more people? Or should we just be repurposing the millions of young people who are doing less important but less icky jobs to do the jobs that we're currently getting immigrants to do. "Who will pick the cotton?" is not a good question.

What a selfish society the US have. 900 bucks for a fn ambulance. I enjoyed my stay when I was there, but living there.... seems to be a fucked up, soulless, dog eat dog, sell your own mother for 3 pennies kinda devil ridden place.