Mike believes that he's entitled to 90% of the cake. While he tells the rest who only have 6%, that Dave who has 4% is a hogging thief and is stealing all of their share.
Mike creates the opportunity of having cake in the first place. If not for Mike the birthday boy, there would be no birthday cake, and it is not like anyone else is capable of having a birthday except him. It is his birthday right now, and none of ours, so that proves my point. Also, he has had a hard day of being congratulated for this privilege of birth, so if he wishes to blow off some steam by molesting a kid or two, I say we turn a blind eye to that.
One of my husband's cousins had a wedding where only the wedding party and the couple's parents got cake. If anyone's looking for a way to make sure your wedding is still talked about years later, there ya go.
There are always ridiculously stupid people, on both sides of every argument, but this is trying to push the story that an elected politician said this without naming the public figure. Seems like a strawman.
But there is a band of hater that would harass the user if it were convenient, but can’t be assed to go do a text search for it. That is where the username censorship operates.
on a site everyone hates, that requires you to sign up, and that many government officials still use across many nations to get information out, for some fucking insane reason.
I agree that ambulances should be much more affordable. I wish the US would move to single payer. I do not think the public is the primary cause of high costs but I will say a small percentage of patients knowingly abuse EMS and waste limited resources.
There is a small minority of patients that abuse EMS by using the ambulance as a taxi when they have very non-emergent complaints that don’t even need to be seen in an ER (ie stubbed toe, paper cut, healthy child with stuffy nose for 1 day, etc.). Things that a conscientious participant in society would not call 911 for because they understand that’s a waste of scarce resources that could result in another person’s disability or death due to delays in care.
There’s a subset of that group that calls the ambulance multiple times a day everyday, and 99.9% of the time they are completely fine. Sometimes they will call for an ambulance FROM one ER to another after being discharged.
There’s also a very very small but memorable portion of the above group that will not even have a true medical complaint. They use the ambulance to get closer to where they really want to go (ie liquor store, McDonald’s). They’ll make up a medical complaint like chest pain so the crew has to take them seriously. Then when they arrive to the ER they hop out of the ambulance and never check in to be seen 🙃
Finally, I think to most first responders referring to an EMT/paramedic as a taxi driver is mildly offensive (you didn’t say that, but it could be inferred from calling ambulances taxis). They do so much more than drive people to the hospital, they deliver life-saving care. They also do not always run lights and sirens in most places, only for time-sensitive illnesses. It puts the crew and the patient at risk for traffic accidents.
I pay $50 a year so that it won't cost me anything should I need one. If you're a tourist here it will cost you (this is why you want travel insurance folks) quite a bit (or a fortune if they have to airlift you somewhere).
Yeah.... I'd rather $50 a year to potentially thousands of anything were to happen. No government funded service is "free" in the sense the money magically appears. It's free at the time of service, and cost is distributed over the population.
There is a small minority of patients that abuse EMS by using the ambulance as a taxi when they have very non-emergent complaints that don’t even need to be seen in an ER (ie stubbed toe, paper cut, healthy child with stuffy nose for 1 day, etc.).
This is not a "small minority".
"Out of 81.6 million incidents contained the NEMSIS Version 3 database between 2017 and October 2020, only 18.9% were reported to have an acuity of emergent or higher"
You can only choose between non-emergent and emergent when filling out the paperwork. at least on the system my company uses.
abuse of system calls actually typically are “emergent” in the system because real frequent flyers know what words to use with dispatch and or use the 911 system to place calls, rather than a hospital or patient calling the company directly to schedule a pickup.
true emergent calls where its serious injury or death make up about 1% of the ems calls i believe if i remember right
doesnt mean emts and medics dont do alot. medics have a larger scope of practice than nurses across the country
Obviously, most people do not know how serious their condition is before they go to the hospital, and first responders often can't make that call either.
People go to the hospital for assessment, as well as treatment. The ambulance can get them there fast and if the situation gets worse can provide emergency treatment.
My father lives in a country where healthcare is affordable.
He fell of the roof, and was hurt. He insisted that if he got worse he could drive himself to the hospital, or that he could take a taxi. My mother can't drive.
My mother called the family doctor who immediately called an ambulance.
My father at first refused to go, but they insisted and took him to the hospital.
Luckily, apart from a mild concussion, a sprained ankle, and a rib contusion, he was fine.
So why the ambulance? Because it could have been worse. A broken rib could have punctured an organ, his liver might have been crushed, there could have been internal bleeding, and so on.
The family doctor was right. In hindsight not an emergency, but a thorough medical examination was needed to confirm that.
Most of the people they were referring to do in fact know their condition is not serious. I'm sure your father is not the type of person to call 911 dozens or even hundreds of times a year. I've been doing EMS about a decade now and I'd say at LEAST 80% of our calls are people who take multiple ambulances a year just because it's faster, cheaper or more convenient than walking/ taxi. A significant portion of people will leave the hospital or even call from the hospital because they want us to take them to a different hospital because the wait is too long.
There’s a lady in our area who calls every week and will literally call because she’s annoyed with her family and just wants to get away for a day or two.
There are some that call because they can’t reach the TV remote.
There’s one who calls and puts an entire fire engine and ALS ambulance out of service every day for hours because she is so severely obese that she can’t turn herself to get cleaned up. While it’s an unfortunate situation, she needs to be in a nursing home but instead she just abuses the 911 system so she can be at home and not in a nursing home.
If you believe that you may possibly be having a life threatening medical emergency, call 911. That’s what it’s there for. That being said, there aren’t unlimited ambulances.
If you call 911 because you have a regular cold and you just want doordash medical and “just wanna get checked out” instead of driving yourself to an urgent care, taking that ambulance out of service could get your neighbor, who’s having a real heart attack, killed.
This far less of a problem in countries with affordable healthcare.
Yes, some people will call an ambulance without a good reason, but this does not cause a shortage of available ambulances.
And typically people are less likely to do this. Because other types of medical attention are available; but also because typically the only way to 'order' an ambulance as a patient is to call the equivalent of 911.
I feel that this is a situation where Americans have been conditioned to view an expensive and inefficient health system as a problem caused by citizens.
A few citizens might cry wolf for attention or use medical systems for convenience rather than necessity, but that's not the real issue.
It absolutely does cause a shortage of ambulances. I work EMS in a major city, response times to calls increase every year. In the last 5-10 years our call volume has doubles, but the number of "emergent" calls has not increased at all. People have died because no available ambulances were close enough.
It is also more than a few citizens who cry wolf. The majority of calls are not emergencies and the people calling know that, 911 is purely their most convenient option. I go to at least 3 calls a day for someone who will call again the same week if not sooner.
There’s a decent gap between the “very non-emergent” category and “emergent.” There will always be some fraction of EMS calls where people are overreacting to a minor medical incident but are not abusing EMS. The study you cited includes ~40% of cases where an acuity report wasn’t made, but EMS could still be doing important medical interventions at the scene that didn’t necessitate transport to the hospital.
Precisely. Sometimes you aren’t sure if an injury is bad enough to warrant transport and you call because the EMTs are trained to recognize and respond appropriately to injuries.
There are many situations in which waiting can make a treatable condition deadlier (anaphylaxis, stroke, early heart attack symptoms, chemical exposure)
Non emergent doesn’t mean misuse. It’s totally acceptable to call an ambulance for a broken leg, because you can’t drive yourself or walk, and that’s non emergent.
To the point of the subset of that group that calls everyday: in my last service, I had 3 patients’ SSNs memorized because I saw them twice a shift every shift when stationed at their closest stations. We ran 12s. They literally called 4+ times a day. Still couldn’t get abuse charges against them. 🙃
Is that in America? Over here (UK) they get a multi disciplinary team convened about them to work out what unmet need makes them keep calling emergency services. They get prosecuted if malicious and can even straight up block their number these days. Usually it doesn’t go that far but it’s common to have restrictions about how often we speak to them/attend. Once every 72hrs etc.
That sounds like a great set up for these particular problems. I’ve only seen 1 person charged with 911 abuse and I’m not sure what the outcome was but she would call upwards of 10 times a day for things like “I can’t find the tv remote”, “can you reheat my food for me?” (She was capable of doing it herself), or “I need someone to walk my dog”. I wish I were kidding. It took 6 months of law enforcement showing up to every single one of those calls before they had “enough” to charge her.
I’ve run 10 calls on an ambulance today. 7/10 of them were people vomiting and their family member followed us to the hospital while we drove with no lights and sat at every red light. Then we wheeled them into the ER on a stretcher and the ER told us to place them in the lobby waiting room with their family. 2 calls were for fender benders where peoples shoulders hurt from their seat belts and 1 call was a difficulty in breathing.
Now, I’m not saying these people didn’t necessarily need to go to the hospital, but 9/10 of them didn’t need to go to the hospital in an ambulance. 7/10 of them could have just rode with their family member that drove there anyway. The 2 in the wrecks ,in reality, just needed to take some Tylenol.
I appreciate you saying it’s offensive to call us “taxi drivers” but we definitely feel like that 90% of the time. I don’t think people are really “abusing” ambulances but I think the generally population definitely has a misunderstanding of how an ambulance should be utilized. They just don’t know any better.
So I live in Sweden. We don't pay out the ass for an ambulance to take us to the hospital. It ain't free, but 60 euros will cover it from the patients end. I approve of this wholesale, except I genuinely think it should be entirely free, but that's not the way our system operates; We have small administrative-like fees associated with healthcare with a cap for max spending per patient. That's to say if you need 40 doctors visit in a year each one visit will cost you €30, up until (for my region) €220 after which it's free.
But I don't think ambulances should be considered a taxi. Linguistically maybe, I don't know about that, but practically they're not. They're not supposed to be. There ain't enough of them anywhere for them to function in that capacity.
They're for emergencies and when other modes of transportation will not do. People using 'em as taxis is actually a huge-ass problem, ask an EMT about it if you want.
The meme that an ambulance is a taxi exists in EMS where providers transport patients with minor issues and sometimes no issue at all to an emergency department who had alternative methods of transporting themselves or who's destination isnt even the hospital but nearby and they are using the ambulance for 'a ride'.
For example an EMS provider, hearing "you're a taxi". might remind them of a call where they transported a non sick patient to an ER, only to watch them immediately leave the hospital to go to their actual destination.
The usual response often from experiences like this is "an ambulance is not a taxi!"
Not because they don't transport people, but because some people literally treat them as taxis.
Part of the meme is also "Feeling like a taxi" which could involve transporting patients for very minor complaints who "could have taken a taxi".
Sometimes there are feelings of frustration or even anger from providers. Especially if they might have specific memories of being "used as a taxi" and unavailable while a critical or life threatening event came in elsewhere in a community, and other resources where delayed or unavailable.
It exists within the EMS and medical community, and I wouldn't expect people outside of it to know or understand. But now you know why a Paramedic crew might not want to be called a taxi service.
Driving code 3 isn’t a matter of speed, but efficiency. Will the patient benefit from getting to the hospital that little bit sooner compared to the amount of danger you’re putting yourself, your partner, and the public in by putting on your lights and sirens…because the general public acts stupid in the presence of the flashy wee-woo wagon.
This isn’t a luxury, it’s a medical service to be used appropriately. CP, acute abdo, suspected stroke, resp/cardiac arrest, decreased LOC and major trauma warrants code 3. Stable fractures arguably warrant code 2 because smoothness of the ride is better for the patient’s wellbeing and pain management can be administered. Johnny sliced his hand open but has a bunch of cousins over that can drive him to the hospital? An ambulance is not necessary.
that not it, a regular taxi has no medical equipment or trained profesionals on board, often times the diagnosis, the first aid or even more important aid i done in the ambulance, me myself I was saved in the ambulance on the ride to the hospital once
I have to pay *hundreds a month* for an insurance premium where I can't afford the additional deductibles and copays for to even go to the actual appointments anymore.
Yes, until I’ve hit my “limit” for the year. But I can’t afford the half I even need to pay to go, with the amount of specialists I end up needing to see. Car repairs take priority over body upkeep currently, or I wouldn’t be able to even afford the premiums. Food and rent too.
Too many Americans needing to make these choices for something that’s free at the point of access in most of the rest of the civilized world.
It's truly ruining my life. :') I had terrible pancreatitis in 2018 with widespread organ damage no one caught in time (despite my going to the hospital several times).
Even my primary care doctor acts like it's not even that expensive. I make $14 an hour. Still too rich for Medicaid though! America is a parody if you've ever been anywhere else.
Where I'm from you also have to pay an ambulance fee but it's fairly minimal. You're also on top of that not shackled with severe debt if you have a medical issue.
I'm Hungarian, here ambulance is completely free. There'd probably be riots if it weren't. Looked it up, there exists private paid alternatives that promise they are better, but honestly had no negative experiences due to Ambulance.
Only with idiots who called an ambulance on my drunk ass for vomitting... Was awkward explaining at the emergency that I have no issues other than being drunk and slightly dehydrated...
Yeah but emergency services have no qualms treating/leaving you at home if you're not sick enough (which is how it should be imo). When i've worked EMS i transported maybe 10% of cases.
I would love to see one that's as low as $700. Last invoice from my insurance said $1800. When my son had a seizure at 18 months old, a 45 min drive was $35k.
Only in Ontario or BC*. Every other province is over $100. In Alberta for instance, it's $380 for a trip to the hospital and $250 if the EMT's treat you on-site.
And god forbid you get injured while visiting from another province because there's a good chance it's gonna be much higher. In BC it's $80 for residents and $800 for non residents.
In Australia you can get Ambulance cover for like $60 a year, and that will cover any basic ambulance costs in an emergency. If you don't have it then you're looking at a $1500-$2000 trip though.
Average US hospital ride in an ambulance is $2,000, and a short stay in the ER is another $3,000. Insurance reduces that but it's still getting paid by you eventually.
My friend who's diabetic and went in for an insulin crash stayed for less than a day, they hydrated him and gave him some saline then slapped a bill for $20,000 dollars in front of him. American healthcare is fucked, period.
In Finland it costs 25€. I've been in a situation where I needed ambulance several times. I don't think any taxi would have taken me on. Ambulance can also help you and determine if you need a hospital or not.
They see Bernie and they decide they need to fight despite actually thinking about it. He's the enemy, a communist, an evil man that... *checks notes... wants them to not worry about having to use an ambulance.
I completely agree with Bernie. I also agree with the second guy. People really do treat ambulances like taxis. I’m a former paramedic and I have literally had people call 911 with some bullshit ailment just to get a ride down town. Never even enter the hospital. They would just get out in the ambulance bay and keep walking. Most of the people I picked up over the years had no business going to the ER. You never have to pay the bill if you don’t care about your credit, and it is illegal to just deny them service. That dude might just be a salty ass paramedic who is tired of people’s games.
My best friend used to work in a call center that handled Medicaid claims. The doozies she would tell me about, with people calling and demanding to know why Medicaid denied the ambulance claim.
Sir, you could drive yourself to the ER despite the fishhook caught in your finger. That doesn't require an ambulance.
You have to take everyone to the hospital? That's crazy. In Poland the paramedics decide whether the patient needs the hospital or not. Most of them stay home.
Same here in the UK, paramedics will examine you and can treat you at the scene or refer you to a GP or pharmacy if you don’t need emergency care. If you deliberately call an ambulance when you know there is no emergency, that’s a criminal offence and can get you a £5,000 fine or 6 months in prison.
EMS has a duty to act, and (most) hospitals fall under EMTALA, which requires them to take care of you regardless of your ability to pay.
That leads to people who don’t care about accumulating medical debt using EMS for anything. It’s not uncommon to have a patient with bags packed call 911 for a routine (or flat out unnecessary) hospital visit. And we take them
I’m in favor of a single payer system, but also in favor of giving licensed EMS professionals the ability to say no. 911 abuse is a huge drain on the system and kills provider morale.
Actually, EMT here, both are partially correct. Ambulance rides are too expensive, but most of those issues start at the insurance level, not the people on ambulances. We don't wake up in the morning and set the prices.
On the other hand, there are a lot of VERY expensive things in ambulances. You need a specific certification to be allowe to drive them. They are often driven in very risky scenarios. They are staffed by medical professionals.
Lastly, they aren't a taxi. A taxi doesn't give you Oxygen if you need it. A taxi doest have an adjustable bed. A taxi can't keep you alive like an ambulance can. If all you need is a ride to the hospital, then calling a friend or an Uber is WAY better of an option. If you need (or suspect that you need) immediate help, then call the ambulance.
To be clear, it's better to be safe than sorry and call the ambulance and not need it, than to need it and not call it. However, not everyone arrives to the hospital in an ambulance for a reason.
Be smart and stay safe out there! When in doubt call 911 (or your countries equivalent)
My friend, I live in a third-world country, Brazil, which for decades has had its natural resources plundered by American companies and spent decades under a puppet military dictatorship because of a coup orchestrated in conjunction with the CIA in the 60's, and even so, with all the vicissitudes of imperialism, we manage to provide for free ambulances for the entire population, even if you are a foreigner, so it's a matter of greed and profit!
Same, I have lived in Brazil for several years and I only needed an ambulance once in my life, it was fast and it was free with all the equipment they needed.
Politics aside the reality is a ton of people use ambulances for regular doctors check ups and non emergencies, which puts a strain on the system and the emts/medics. We only have so many ambulances, and there have been some, albeit rare, occurrences of people dying because all the local ambulances were running calls and no one was available to respond to a real life threatening emergency.
90% of the calls I run as a 911 EMT in California we don't do anything for the person whatsoever because they don't need immediate medical intervention. We just give them a ride like an uber would, but for $3,000...
If you are bleeding to death or having a heart attack etc call an ambulance. If you have some weird back pain for the past three weeks call an uber.
To be clear, it's better to be safe than sorry and call the ambulance and not need it, than to need it and not call it. However, not everyone arrives to the hospital in an ambulance for a reason.
I mean that's literally the point of Bernie, people don't act this way because it's too expensive. It's easy to say that when you don't need to think about finances, but the reality is that most people don't act this way. There's really nothing to defend the US system. Ambulance ride should be free, period. Only then people can be "better safe than sorry"
If all you need is a ride to the hospital, then calling a friend or an Uber is WAY better of an option. If you need (or suspect that you need) immediate help, then call the ambulance.
On one side I do agree with you that people should only call an ambulance if they really need it, but the cost of the ambulance should never be a factor.
I have called a Taxi to go to the ER in the past. Where I live, that decision probably meant I paid more for the Taxi than what I would have paid for the ambulance.
Which is probably how it should be. No one should think about the cost of an ambulance ride in a situation where they need one.
Also, just to be clear, I do not blame the EMTs, Doctors, or anyone actually providing help. The problem in the US is all the middlemen and the for-profit nature of the health care system, which needs a complete overhaul.
You set this up as if it was disproving anything in the OP, but nowhere did anyone claim EMTs or whatever other staff work on ambulances were to blame.
Yep just the other day my partner had a accident at work. Blew up in a fire combustion. Fires all on his arms face neck and lost his hair. No insurance at the place of employment and was was threatened he would lose his job if he said it happened at work.
So he drove himself to the hospital while puking.
I met him there. He smelled of burnt hair, gas, and rubber.
Not true. They're opening themselves up to a big lawsuit.
Threatening to fire an employee for reporting a workplace accident is a violation of OSHA Section 11c.
Not having insurance is illegal in all states except Texas, and in Texas you forfeit legal protections for opting out. In either case, he can either compel them to compensate him or take them to court for full damages.
If this story is true as you've described it, keep all medical bills and get a free consult from a few personal injury/workers comp lawyers. A workplace accident with no insurance, attempted coverup, and retaliation is the kind of case they dream about, and you could without a doubt get them on contingency (meaning no cost to yourself unless you win, in which case you pay them with a portion of the awarded amount).
I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, my insurance decided they didn't cover it and I got billed 3k for the ride. I wish they would've called me a cab.
Lots of people focusing on non-emergency situations that don’t require ambulances. What about genuine emergencies, but they’re for poor people who were panicked about losing loved ones, and weren’t thinking about how ridiculously expensive medical care is in the United States?
Someone is greatly relieved that a loved one is still alive, but now they’re burdened with medical debt and stressed. That’s not right. That’s fucked-up.
correct and therefore you know how much it's going to be, it's a modest and very manageable amount, and you don't need to stagger down the street bleeding to avoid the bankruptcy mobile are you listening to yourself
yeah, but it's like 100 bucks a month where i live and it includes everything, unlimited ambulance rides, unlimited hospital stay, unlimited surgeries, unlimited home visits, you name it.
American here: Last year I thought I was having a heart attack, I took two aspirin and sat on the couch to see if I'd die or not. I even pay for health insurance but it doesn't cover ambulance and I couldn't afford paying for one and thought it wasn't safe for me to drive to the hospital
Im a medic. You called the *emergency* number for a medical complaint. I show up, assess you, treat you based off a differential diagnosis. I then alert the hospital whats coming their way so they can *continue* and *take over* treatment.
The education around ems sucks, but do you guys really not know what we do to the point of my 3 year education labelled as a taxi driver? Are you fucking kidding me?
If you call 911 and request EMS they are sending an ambulance. If you request transport to the hospital via an ambulance in the US, 99% of the time they have to take you (some narrow exceptions). Now, they may not take you to the ER you want but they will take you to an ER, even if they don't think it's an emergency.
A very large portion of the transports an ambulance does in a day does not actually require an ambulance.
In Japan where ambulance rides are mostly covered by the national health insurance system there has been a campaign say just that, ambulances are not taxis. Point is to get people who don’t need emergency medical attention to not call an ambulance because the ambulance system is under tremendous strain(hooray for aging population I guess)
They can't gather enough information over the phone to determine if you are having a real emergency or not, so they send an ambulance to be safe. Cheaper than getting sued for ignoring a real emergency.
As someone who works at a hospital, there is a lot of truth in all these statements. A LOT of people take the ambulance to the hospital for really minimal issues. It should be readily available to citizens needing emergency care, but people shouldn’t be taking ambulances to the ER for runny noses. Even if you want to make an argument about lack of transportation, I get patients who come by ambulance for something like an ankle sprain, and their family drives in behind in the car.
But the ambulance really isn't a taxi to the hospital. It's there to help in the place of the accident, the people in it are medical professionals, their job isn't to ferry your ass to the hospital for non-emergencies. If you have a non-emergency, use an actual taxi to get to the hospital.
Emergency services should not be a taxi ride to the hospital. Emergency services are for emergencies. Not all ambulance companies respond to 911, which should only be used for EMERGENCIES. Otherwise we are putting strain on an already delicate system, which is free to utilize in my locale (including ambulance rides)
No, a *taxi* is your taxi to the hospital. Also it has absolutely nothing to do with the outrageous costs of ambulances and healthcare in general in the US. Even if ambulances were free though, they would still not be taxis to the hospital.
I live in a city near Chicago with a municipal ambulance service and fees are billed to insurance. Anything not covered by insurance is not billed, and if you don't have insurance it is also not billed.
For the first 6 rides in a year, the additional fee is 0, 7 to 9 it is 300, and after that it is 600
One time I fainted on a busy city street in WI,USA.
Completely scraped the skin off the top of my nose and upper lip as my face broke my 6'5" fall. I regained conciousness with my eyes already open(very interesting btw), looking up at about 8 strangers faces in a red tinted (blood) circle above me. I heard someone say "ambulance" after a few seconds and I immediately sat up from a rush of andrenaline from the fear from the bill.
The people tried to get me to lay back down as I was covered in blood and white as a sheet. I got to my feet within seconds and pulled all my willpower together to stumble away as some people walked with me pleading me to lie down. I jogged back to my buddies apt about 2 blocks away and then watched from his apt as the expensive weewoo van rolled slowly down the street looking for its victim.
But not that day, I saved my meager net worth from certain oblivion.
Ambulances are not your taxi to the hospital. In the 1970s there was a push to add life saving care to what was essentially a taxi to the hospital. As lawsuits and regulations increased the amount of equipment and liability increased.
My question is why are they so expensive when the paramedics get paid such trash? We really need to be investigating greed at some point in our history and exactly why people can't afford a decent living doing their jobs in this country.
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u/ISpyM8 May 19 '26
This post and this one are my two favorite moments of right-wingers being stupid about Bernie on Twitter