Sorry, most of my past writings were lost by my server when he had a hard drive crash, but I can get all of the old Gold Eagle columns, plus a few since then, but the rest are gone, except for the printed copies I made of them. This lesson is called “backup,” and when a server doesn’t do this, they should be ashamed.
At any rate, a column I wrote recently (gone) about “Public Medicine,” decried the whole thing, and especially when fire departments took over private ambulances. When you order an ambulance from a for profit company, you are expected to pay! When you have the fire department’s ambulance come, you probably won’t pay, other than the taxpayers anyway. I wrote that fire department costs are going to go through the roof, as any public medicine costs a bundle.
A big headline from the Grand Junction Colorado front page of April 5th, screams, “Chiefs Sound Siren For Rate Hike.” That’s right. Less than a year ago, the city of Grand Junction Colorado, forced a private ambulance company out of business, and elected to let the fire department do the ambulance service. Public medicine, in other words. Here are a few lines from the story: “Fire chiefs are struggling to keep up with an increasing number of calls.” “All of the fire chiefs in the county are talking about how much it is costing us to do business.” “The two things that are probably creating an issue with us as far as costs go are fuel and manpower.” “Additionally there are costs for insurance, equipment maintenance and training and COVERING UNPAID BILLS.” (italics mine). “Collection rates for EMS historically have really been low.” My goodness, is this something new?
In other words, they drove the private operator out of business, who was making a profit, substituted government, and now they are running a huge deficit. Do we think that the out of business ambulance operator, was running at a deficit? Does any business run at a deficit, and still stay in business? The private operator had been there for many years and was making a profit. Does any government agency operate at a profit, or even break even? Nope. Who pays for the deficit? The taxpayers of Grand County Colorado, in this case, because the mill levy for fire protection will go up, and it will have NOTHING to do with fire protection. It has to do with public medicine. Why are Americans and their elected representatives so stupid? The same thing has gone on in my town, only it happened several years ago, and of course the fire department runs a huge deficit, which has nothing to do with fighting fires. Volunteer firemen love to fight fires, drive the engine, train, and at virtually no cost to the taxpayer. I was a volunteer fireman in Silverton Colorado for years, and it was fun. It isn’t that way with ’public medicine,’ as an EMT requires a lot of training, and they don’t usually work on a volunteer basis. especially in a town of a larger population, unlike Silverton. Silverton, of course, has gone the way of all flesh, and now has ambulances, EMT’s, and all that goes with ’free public medicine.’ Guess who pays there also? Taxpayers…naturally.