Firefighters watch as house burns to the ground
- Thread starter matthewhotdude
- Start date
The big deal is that the richest country in the world still seems to operate fire departments in a way that we did 200 years ago in London. It is incredibly dumb for essential services to not be paid out of taxation - if a house is on fire its a danger to other houses on fire, it is a hazard to the neighbours houses who may or may not be covered.
Supposing there is a police dept in the city but they don't extend cover to the rest of the county unless they pay a fee - robbers break into your house in the middle of the night but you've not paid your police insurance....
The whole thing is so backwards... the problem in America is that people take political ideas to extremes - I'd call myself libertarian tbh.. but frankly I think a fire service is something that should be provided by the state along with a police service, armed forces and paramedics etc...
The concept here is the same, in a way, as that at the heart of the current healthcare debate in the US, where (amongst other things) they are trying to introduce universal coverage by an obligation for everyone to buy insurance. Those against it complain about them having to subsidise poor people etc, while failing to understand that they already do for the simple reason that medical professionals are not (yet) unethical or immoral (coupled with govt regs) to refuse people emergency treatment because they cannot afford it.
The practical outcome being, that people with no insurance are still treated, and end up paying a fraction of the actual costs by virtue of either going bankrupt or coming to some form of compromise agreement. The remaining costs are then recouped from everyone else by both increased medical costs from the providers (to cover non-payers) which then translates to increased premiums (to cover the increased costs) - in other words those moaning that universal healthcare means subsidising others are already doing so, just less directly.
But as Fox alludes to, it is somewhat unfair to criticise the fireman for making this decision, for a start it's more than likely that they would have wanted to put out the fire but they'd be risking losing their jobs by defying orders from some middle-management bean-counter, and secondly it is a part, at least, of the US culture in certain states where people are almost paradoxically opposed to any form of state control or dependence, even when it's most likely those states would benefit the most from it.
Strange folk etc
*edit*
The point being, you basically draw a line as a society and decide what is a minimum service provision that is acceptable - clearly in some places Americans have decided that a fire service is not something which society should provide for all - now of course that screws the poor who can't afford it, but screwing the poor is also not something that American culture seems to shy away from.
The paradox comes when it seems that via Govt regs and any opinion poll it seems the vast majority of Americans support the notion that everyone should have access to healthcare, in theory at least - it's just they belm out when they realise that such measures are effectively 'socialism' in practice, whether by virtue of taxation or through insurance contributions to pay for treating the uninsured.
The practical outcome being, that people with no insurance are still treated, and end up paying a fraction of the actual costs by virtue of either going bankrupt or coming to some form of compromise agreement. The remaining costs are then recouped from everyone else by both increased medical costs from the providers (to cover non-payers) which then translates to increased premiums (to cover the increased costs) - in other words those moaning that universal healthcare means subsidising others are already doing so, just less directly.
But as Fox alludes to, it is somewhat unfair to criticise the fireman for making this decision, for a start it's more than likely that they would have wanted to put out the fire but they'd be risking losing their jobs by defying orders from some middle-management bean-counter, and secondly it is a part, at least, of the US culture in certain states where people are almost paradoxically opposed to any form of state control or dependence, even when it's most likely those states would benefit the most from it.
Strange folk etc
*edit*
The point being, you basically draw a line as a society and decide what is a minimum service provision that is acceptable - clearly in some places Americans have decided that a fire service is not something which society should provide for all - now of course that screws the poor who can't afford it, but screwing the poor is also not something that American culture seems to shy away from.
The paradox comes when it seems that via Govt regs and any opinion poll it seems the vast majority of Americans support the notion that everyone should have access to healthcare, in theory at least - it's just they belm out when they realise that such measures are effectively 'socialism' in practice, whether by virtue of taxation or through insurance contributions to pay for treating the uninsured.
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You can't compare the rural US with the much more densely populated UK. The cost of providing universal fire protection, with a guaranteed response time - lets face it, it wouldn't be fair on someone out in the country to pay a tax for it if the fire engine didn't get there until a couple of hours after his house had burnt down. Therefore it's left to the individual counties to decide how they go about having fire protection - indeed some counties require homes to have sprinkler systems because of the running costs of a fire service in remote areas.
Its got naff all to do with population density and I think you'll find people living in remote parts of the Scottish highlands are still covered over here.
Tis more a problem with how they've structured local government - if they're able to provide a service by asking for a $75 fee then the question of whether it is possible to provide the service has already been answered. The reason for the fee is because those residents outside the city limits don't pay taxes to the city. The problem I have is that the state itself has areas which aren't specifically covered by a fire service except when the residents pay a $75 fee. It should be possible to arrange fire coverage for the whole state - either by creating a state wide organisation or by agreements between the state and various city fire depts - introduce an additional $75 'rural fire tax' to the property tax for people living in the sticks if they need to. Not being able to have the state provide basic emergency services in a 1st world country is ridicules and the idea of a system where you have to opt in has already been shown to be ineffective.
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I would hardly compare remote parts of the Scottish Highlands with remote parts of the US. The size of area that would have to be covered at extreme expense in rural US would be many many times the size the UK, let alone the Scottish Highlands. It's one of reasons why Scotland receives more per head in tax spend than the rest of the UK as it is - imagine how much more expensive it would be in a state like Kansas that's three times the size and only half the population.
Those just outside the city limits though are benefiting from the economies of scale that a dense population centre gives. I would imagine that specific county has decided that it's cheaper for the residents to pay into the neighbouring city counties fire service rather than fund there own specifically for their own county as it would be considerably more expensive. To cover the whole state won't cost $75 a property, it will be substantially more as it will become increasingly more expensive the more rural an area is. Forcing poor people to pay more taxes screws them over.
At the end of the day those individuals were given an option as to whether to pay the for fire coverage and chose not to. Personal responsibility in action, something we seem lacking of over here.
Wouldn't be surprised if they won.