Awhile back, Mark and I had a tv show on access cable in the Dayton, OH market. At the time, and perhaps our readers from the MVCA will verify if this is still the case, the city was charging people for ambulance services. I thought it was an outrage and asked a candidate for County Commission what she thought about it and got the standard, "This isn't something we handle." (Which is true, this is a problem with the city, nto the county.)Turns out, this sort of thing is spreading. This from the Sun Press in Cleveland:
When a huge icicle fell off his Shaker Heights house in December and sliced open Jim Gibson's lip, he drove himself to the emergency room rather than call 9-1-1.Now, I ask again...why, exactly, are we paying taxes? That money is supposed to be for essential services, but that isn't where it is going.
Gibson was worried that his insurance company would drop him if he called a Shaker Heights ambulance, because the Fire Department bills insurance for that service.
In May, 2005, six months before the icicle accident, Gibson's son had caused a fender-bender auto accident on Van Aken Boulevard.
The accident happened three months after the Police Department began billing insurance companies for its services at traffic accidents, no matter how routine.
When Gibson's insurance company received a $285 bill for police services provided at the scene of his son's accident, it refused to pay, saying the city's taxpayers are responsible for those services.
The police department, through its collection agency, threatened to collect its fee from Gibson, but to date that hasn't happened.
However, when Gibson cut his lip six months later, he reasoned that using city services again so soon by calling 9-1-1 might lead his insurance company to cancel his policy.
Competence matters...or, at least, it should if the citizenry is awake...
