On EMS and fire, and who pays

[nadinbrzezinski]

well as some of you know, I did this EMS shtick south of the border.

Among the many things I did was well assist the fire department at scenes. Yes, when it got hot I did get to haul a nice fire hose. Any of you who've done it know just how much fun that is.

I also went into the house of a family in a ciudad perdida. When we arrived on scene the home was partially engulfed and the cops were holding mom, who was, understandably hysterical. You see, her two year old was in there, as best they could tell. So on goes the turn out, and the Scott Air Pack, and me and a young fire fighter go in there, on hands and knees... fancy night vision gear? You kid me, that costs money. I was lucky to get a Scott Air Pack with 20 minutes of air on it, and a fire fighter on my back with both of us working the damn nozzle.

After what seemed like forever, (two minutes) of hot, grimy, horrible work I found a lump. So we dragged lump out, it was the two year old, and rushed her to the waiting ambulance, we started bagging, since she wasn't breathing, and went down the damn ALS protocol. Partner loaded mom on the front seat, as I inserted a tube... and started bagging and then started for the trauma unit.

Long story short, kid actually made it, and yes I returned the Scott Air pack to the FD... it was theirs.

Now here is the great difference between the fire under discussion today and that one... well actually two.

We had a life to rescue, a human kid.

They actually did NOT pay any taxes.

What do you think the bill was?

If you said a big fat zero, you are correct.

We lived on charity literally, and the ciudades perdidas are not part of the fire protection taxes. Hell, these people technically invaded that land, and took it over. There are many complexities involved. But reading what I am reading I guess we should not have responded to begin with. And that is what scares the living daylights out of me.

Now I used a dramatic example but I could have used many other examples were we went and took care of people who had nothing, and lord were we aggressive with fire fighting since there was no State Farm at the end of the day. We just did it. It was part of the job. This is why I find this so damn fucking amazing. Are things better there? No. But I fear there is a different moral center when it comes to things like this... or at least to some areas of the US.

Do we have top of the line equipment? Nope.

Did the fire department have new trucks? Only if you consider 1960s American LaFrance Pumpers new... hey they worked.

But I guess it was a different way of thinking about the value of human life, and trust me, there were times I wanted to "kill" people for being total asses.

So perhaps you will understand why watching fire fighters standing by is so damn shocking. And yes I do get it, how much it costs to run ONE pumper... given I had to make sure ambulances RAN... I get it... and my budget, I am betting, was smaller than most paid FD in the US... any volunteer FD will get it... end of fiscal year. no money... do I have an extra 75 bucks to keep the rig in circulation? Yes I did that. So yes, different culture indeed. And at least I know that SDFD will not sit and watch a house burn...and yes, they do charge for ambulance service... and I realize, having done the work that they also somewhat subsidize it... but hey whatever. It is time for this country to grow the fuck up, it really is, and for libertarians, I don't care what stripe... to get it. It is not about them, but about US.

Nadin

Still trying to comprehend this mentality... I don't think I will ever do.

[Liberty Belle]

1. you had the one thing those other firefighters lacked: a heart.

And for those so-called Christians who would allow a poor neighbor's house to burn if they couldn't pay a bill, Jesus commanded you to care for the least among us.

that's what paying taxes is all about -- spreading the cost among all, so that everyone is protected. shame on anyone who would stand by and let a family's house burn down, animals or people's lives destroyed for want of a few dollars. Absolutely disgusting and I hope our federal government makes this pratice illegal. Has anyone sent this story to the White House, someone there with influence? Or sent this to your Congrsesional reps and asked them to do a bill outlawing such practices?

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. I can bet they will raise the tenth amendment

it is a different, and very alien, culture.

I will not attempt to comprehend it at this point. It is just damn alien.

It should be illegal, but I am betting it will not be made illegal.

Left wing libertarians will fight it, to the teeth, and so will right wing libertarians.

[flamingdem]

2. I can only hope that shameful incident is never repeated

I hope that firefighters still have a quarter of the morals that you showed with the penniless in Mexico!

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. It is ethics, not morals

:-)

A professional code of conduct, and also leadership... as well as a very alien culture.

And this is NOT the first incident either... and I fear not the last.

I give up in trying to comprehend it... (and it is not just the south, even if most of the incidents that we know off have happened in the south)

[flamingdem]

9. I can't see this happening in Vermont. People help each other there, it's the culture

and is in many rural areas where people are forced by circumstance to aid one another. But it's so clear the favor will be returned in some mannter it's not even a question. For example spending 5 hours pulling someone's car out of a snowbank. Just because you do!

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. But that is not part of the culture in So Cal

for example, where you are afraid doing that will lead to a lawsuit, why? It has in the past.

And as we have seen not in some places of the south.

As I see it we have about five dominant cultures, aka regions. The North East has it's own way of doing things. The Bible Belt, no doubt, Texas, foreign country, Cali, all the way to Oregon are closer culturally than to the rest of the country, and even that, there is a clear line in Cali. Then you have fly over country... I mean when I've gone to Oh, it feels as alien as going to Greece, not kidding.

[Me.]

5. Have We Come To This Is All I Can Think

It seems none of us can expect a helping hand that doesn't have a price tag attached and maybe we better start praying that we won't need the help of others for we can no longer count on it being being there. Thank God this wasn't the mentality on 9/11.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. It WAS a big city

or I am betting they would have stood to the side if they did not pay their fees.

Sickening indeed.

[Me.]

7. When It comes Down To It I Don't Think Size Matters

I'm betting there are smaller places where the firemen go above and beyond, it is why they are, usually, so admired. And what if, in these hard time with so many unemployed, they didn't/don't have $75.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. It is truly an alien country and a foreign culture

I don't pretend to comprehend it. To me it is well beyond my understanding.

[Fumesucker]

11. Not as foreign as you might think..

Hundreds of people die every day in America of perfectly treatable conditions because they can't pay for it.

But we're *used* to that form of economic triage so it doesn't bother us nearly as much.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. It bothers me, it has since the 1980s

and I have not pretended to comprehend that either.

But having an 18 year old refuse an ambulance ride since he cannot afford it, and talking him into it, gut feeling and finding out a neck fracture is not a warm fuzzy. Why he refused? He did not have insurance.

[Fumesucker]

17. Some of the same people here I see railing against the FD..

Are the same group who just loooove the individual health insurance mandate that doesn't even guarantee actual health care..

A bunch of flaming hypocrites in my view, everyone should have taxpayer funded fire protection and taxpayer funded health care as well.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Yes and... it will not happen

because of the foreign country we are dealing with.

[Fumesucker]

23. Not an iota of sympathy for those of us who can't even have an intelligent conversation..

Because we are surrounded by brainwashed idiots..

My brother used to be something fairly close to a liberal, he hasn't gone full metal wingnut yet but I can feel his attitudes changing for the worse. Up until recently he's been the only person I could have an intelligent discussion with, I'm about to lose that.

Then I come here on DU and get more shit from people who don't have a clue what it's like to have the pod creatures take over your very family.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. I have a clue

because it has happened to friends.

What you think we don't have a few, actually more than just a few, wingnuts round these parts? What do you think our city council is full off? Dare I say our MINORITY at the state level is wingnut dominated and has the state hostage.

But it is STILL an alien country. I cannot even try to comprehend it anymore.

I had a conversation with a STATE Senator, who was telling people about how great the days were, since they'd lower taxes to zero. I dared asked this idiot, where exactly was his pay coming from? I have never seen anybody get pissed so fast., but today, really convinced me... this wingnuttery IS an alien country, one that I cannot comprehend... at all

[eridani]

39. You're describing one of my brothers as well

Really sad, and I don't know what to do except to keep the level of discussion at the level of Maxine cartoons.

[aquart]

33. Oh, our FD has been known to turn to a businessman with a burning store

And ask "How much to save it?" That's not an exact quote, but close. And that business barely two blocks from the Tweed Courthouse. Can gut the soul, it can.

[Withywindle]

10. I really think the point of your post is,

Do money or ideology or orders make some people willing to stand by and watch others lose everything they have, suffer, and maybe die...when they could help but are told not to do so?

The answer, in many cases, is YES. Katrina should have made that obvious for even the slowest among us.

I see a lot of people hating on Gene Cranick because he didn't pay the $75 fee--and, frankly, because he is a white southern man.

The firefighters who callously watched his house burn down without helping were also white southern men. At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency? THOSE men didn't - because they were ordered not to by their bosses.

How can any self-proclaimed progressive not understand that the bosses are the ultimate problem? NOBODY, ANYWHERE, should have to go through what Mr. Cranick did. I don't care how he votes or what double-digit bill he failed to pay.

And how could any trained first-responder with a sense of ethics just sit there with all their equipment and watch it happen without even trying to help? I know you couldn't, nadinbrzezinski. Hell, how could any human being, trained or not, not even want to try?

[Fumesucker]

14. And yet many of the same people who are most upset by what the FD did..

Are those who are most in favor of an individual mandated health insurance policy that has no guarantee of getting actual health care..

Now I'm not pointing the finger at you specifically, I really don't know your position on HCR but I've been watching this fire debate tonight and I do recognize some of the posters involved and know where they stand on the individual mandate.

[Withywindle]

20. I am enraged by the ways in which HCR failed.

And yet encouraged by ways it might potentially help in the future.

I'm marginal. I live paycheck to paycheck. I'm over 40 and underemployed. I'm pretty resigned to my days being numbered, and that whatever the means of my death turns out to be, it'll probably be something that could have been mitigated if I had more money. It bugs me, but I can't spend too much time thinking about it. I literally *can't* for my health; depression and anxiety will probably play a role in whatever the final cause is, for me.

I do think that HCR is a tiny, pathetic, crawling, incremental improvement. I think it's possible that it might manage to save one life here or there. And I do think it matters, for that one life. It's better than none.

[Fumesucker]

25. When the Republican take over again HCR is going to be an utter disaster..

I've been around long enough to know the Repubs always take over again..

The Repubs wil strip out all the protections and leave the mandate and then, to paraphrase Roseanne, we'll be so far beyond screwed that the light from screwed will take ten billion years to reach us.

I'm sixty and haven't had insurance or seen a doctor in well over two years now, unemployed and if it weren't for the kindness of family I'd be living on the street.

Honestly I don't expect to ever see a doctor again except perhaps at the ER.

[Withywindle]

30. I hear you.

The last time I saw a doctor was in '07 when I got strep throat.

I still had a job with insurance then. I lost it just a few months later. If I got strep now...well, I would have absolutely no way of paying for treatment.

I don't think either party is really interested in helping people. The Dems are only marginally better because of the working-class/minority vote; they can't screw us over AS boldly as Repubs do.

[aquart]

34. Yeah? Done a poll?

[BzaDem]

36. The two really have nothing to do with each other. The people opposed to the mandate WANT a mandate

for fire protection. They also would be fine with a mandate for healthcare if it were for a government plan.

It was an interesting way of bringing up your bullshit that mandated policies have "no guarantee of getting actual health care," but it really has nothing to do with the OP.

[eridani]

40. We also want a mandate to pay into a government-administered single payer system

That is very different from a mandate to pay tribute to mass murderers with no guarantee of ever getting anything in return.

[BzaDem]

41. Yes, it is different from your description. Though your description has nothing to do with reality.

nt

[eridani]

46. Reality is that insurers are jacking up rates to a truly obscene level

And there is no law whatsoever requiring them to pay on a claim just because you file one.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Ah yes Katrina

another foreign country and a very strange week. I had a hand in getting international help in.

But them were the minorities that other Alien country despises. That alien country is in some ways geographic, in others, not so much.

I will not try to understand it anymore, I just can't.

[Withywindle]

22. Thank you for your service.

:patriot:


This is exactly the problem, I think. When an arbitrary line is drawn: "Oh, THIS person deserves help in their hour of greatest need, but THAT person doesn't."


It's not just for the right-wing. There's too much of it right here tonight.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. It is also willful ignorance

and five different countries inside this land mass...

It will not end well.

Today Ed Schultz, asked if our best days were behind or ahead of us? I immediately said behind... very much behind.

Tonight is making me reconsider whether I really want to even be involved in politics anymore... it really is.

[Tatiana]

12. They need to add the fee for fire protection to the property taxes. Period.

And it was stupid not to put out the fire. A neighbor actually DID pay for the service and still had their home damaged due to the fire department not putting out the original fire.

Put the fire out and bill them. Period. It honestly seems that simple to me.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. It is, but that policy matter is alien

to people in that foreign country. You and I are talking policy, and it seems it don't translate to that foreign country.

[Tatiana]

21. Clearly people don't read their bills or assessment papers.

I pay state, municipal, property, and county taxes. The money I pay goes to support PUBLIC services, like police, fire, 911, emergency, ambulance... all of that. Even if I didn't pay, any of those agencies would respond if I was in a crisis situation. Enough people pay in so that everyone is covered.

We are getting too brainwashed with the Republican/corporate idea of privatization and libertarianism. Some things have to be publicly owned and supported if we want to exist in a civil society.

[Fumesucker]

27. Umm.. The Democrats just passed a quintessentially Republican health insurance bill..

One that mandates individual health insurance policies but says nothing about actual health care..

And there are plenty of people all over DU trumpeting that as a huge victory for the Democrats.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. As I said from what I have read here

I should have let that kid die... the family was on somebody else's land and they did NOT pay taxes.

And it is sickening to me.

Yes, the justification is that it costs money to run that fire truck... yes it runs about three million bucks to run a fire truck \ year (in a paid department, if you got a full volunteer fire engine, you can cut about 100K off that bill)

But still, jesus age... I feel like I just came into an alien country... perhaps if I click my ruby slippers...

[sabrina 1]

29. I think this says it perfectly:

But I fear there is a different moral center when it comes to things like this...

Capitalism has no moral center. Rightwingers in this country have no moral center. To these people morality is 'weak'. That is because they confuse strength with the capacity to be cruel when in fact, there is nothing weaker than cruelty.

It takes great strength of character, and as you demonstrated, physical strength, to do what is right sometimes. Rightwingers/Capitalists are very weak people. Frightened people. Afraid of everything, scared that if someone else gets something without paying for it, in some way that diminishes them. How cowardly it is to worry about such trivia. To be unable to do what is right, out of fear. Fear that if one person can't or won't pay a few dollars, they must 'teach them a lesson' even if that means the loss of a home, or worse, a human being. I cannot believe either what I am reading here.

This country is primitive, frightened, paranoid and selfish. It would probably take decades or more to evolve from the primitive state that currently exists here. That is why torture is so acceptable. And War. And allowing people to die if they cannot afford insurance.

I'm not sure if there is any hope it will change, but I hope so.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. This has nothing to do with Capitalism

but all the way back to the Scott Borderer area of the UK... and sixteenth century attitudes re the poor, and slave labor

Remember, indentures came from that area of the home country and chiefly settled in the South...

Just putting this in historical context, since I am reading on this right now... trying to figure out why labor is where it is. Our present attitudes are very much related to this period. It sounds to me that we have not evolved much.

[sabrina 1]

35. This wasn't about the poor, not this particular case.

The owner of the house was not poor. This was about making money from a service that should be provided free. People pay taxes. Everywhere else in the country if your house goes on fire, the FD will be there, because we pay taxes to pay for the Police, the FD, roads etc.

Republicans run that area. The Mayor is a Republican, as are nearly all the other elected officials. Do we know who manages that money? Is there an accounting of it anywhere?

This is how Capitalism works. Everyone is a 'commodity'. There is nothing that cannot yield a profit, including lives.

I am familiar with the period you are talking about. That was an entirely different system although the greed and lust for power are not much different than they are today, just the means of getting them.

Systems change, Feudalism, Communism, Capitalism, Liberalism, Fascism, but human beings, at least here, have not evolved from the middle ages. When on occasion the people rise up, as happened here, and make improvements in the lives of ordinary people, the rightwingers also come back and find a new way to take advantage of people. Today's way is Capitalism. It will eventually go the way of all the other 'isms', but then they'll find some new way to take advantage of people.

[nadinbrzezinski]

42. It was about a very boerderer attitude of live me the fuck

alone and only me and my clan matter.

This is what this was about.

The South is not that different from what I am reading in 16th century England, border Marches. I don't presume to comprehend it... but this has nothing to do with capitalism.

Some of the folks from that foreign country, yes, it is a foreign country, will gladly 'xplain it to you, silly lib'rul. Replace English for Lib'rul if you are in sixteenth century Border Marches and a Scott. It is the same fucking attidude and you big city folks just don't get it. Well, I don't.

And yes, the RW in the US, especially Rural areas, are stuck in the sixteen century and are afraid of the commons. Read on the Enclosure acts, you will actually get why they are afraid.

But it has nothing to do with that eighteenth century formalization of Capitalism by Adam Smith. He actually got the importance of the Commons. Why? IT affected him.

[Bonobo]

31. K&R nt

[Hekate]

37. As a fellow Californian, YOU understand fire.I don't know how dry Tenn is, but Calif & Mexico areDRY

Nearly everyone in this region knows you don't play with matches in the forest, build a bonfire on a windy night, do a non-permitted burn of any sort during fire season, and you sure as HELL don't stand by and watch someone's house burn to the ground, because the whole neighborhood and half the back-country will be next.

Tennessee's state, city, and county governments must be medieval.

Nadin, correct me or back me up here, but this is my understanding of how our California firefighters operate:

They are trained professionals and are paid by our taxes. From grateful citizens they get donuts, coffee, hot meals at staging areas during major fires -- not some token amount of money for them to show up at all.

We have firefighters for every type of region and level of government: forest, wildland, state, county, city. They provide support in many different emergency situations: earthquakes, floods, hazmat spills, vehicle accidents. They are paid a salary to show up, and they are trained in what to do when they get there.

If an incident is too much for one region's crews, they have a system of mutual aid in place to bring in personnel and equipment from other areas. I know our local crews have even gone out of state to major fires, that's how vast the system of mutual aid is. No way in Hell would a crew from the city not respond to a fire in the unincorporated area of the county if they were called out there, but the COUNTY firefighters would be on the scene first.

TENNESSEE HAS GOT IT WRONG AND THEIR SYSTEM MAY BE LEGAL, BUT IT IS INDEFENSIBLE. By looking only at the frames of "law" and "personal responsibility" commentators also get it wrong. Some laws are flat out wrong, like segregation, and snarking on Rev. ML King for breaking the law and having to accept a jail sentence for it would be egregiously beside the point. When the law is that wrong, the law needs to be changed. When a practice is as wrong as this one in Tennessee has proven to be, there is no defense for it -- it needs to be changed.

Thanks for your OP, Nadin.

Hekate

[nadinbrzezinski]

43. You got it right and the mutual aid

agreements include Mexico and Canada.

During Northridge I was on stand by for mutual aid for San Diego, while SDFD Rescue was on the way to North ridge. They turned back half way there, and we went home.

During the fires two years ago, Tijuana Fire Crews fought that fire shoulder to shoulder with Cal Fire and SDFD crews.

Why I cannot fathom being a fire fighter and sitting in a cab and watching it burn.

[LiberalAndProud]

38. Yes. I think our fire departments should be charitable organizations here too.

Wait ... what?

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. Well the Red Cross, the organization I worked with,

cannot take one red cent from taxes... but I guess it would be well beyond your comprehension as to why.

[LiberalAndProud]

47. Actually, I do understand.

I also understand that our fire services are publicly funded (mostly) through taxes. I really don't think that we want to move those services to charitable organizations because, as you say they would not have access to public monies. Your description above is not ideal -- inadequate equipment, dependent upon the largesse of those with extra funds. Yet it appears that you think it is preferable to our solution.

Look, I think the folks in Tennessee are short sighted and stupid. But we do live in a country that allows for local governments to govern locally. Unless we enact federal laws to outlaw fees for service, loonies will enact loony laws. You would save them from themselves. I would allow them to reap the reward, because then they might change the loony laws. I think that's the main difference between you and me. It isn't that I think their system is a good one, it is that I believe they have the right to live with the consequences.

As it stands, either the county government can collect money to provide service, the 2700 people in South Fulton will be required to provide service for all residents within a five-mile radius, or residents who choose not to contribute won't participate. I'll grant you that the last solution has an immoral quality to it, but the second solution places an unreasonable financial burden on too few people. The first solution is the one I prefer. Maybe now the commissioners will get off their libertarian asses and do the right thing.

[Hekate]

45. See my post #37 about how a real, rational, system works. Tenn needs to change how it operates.

Period.

[malaise]

48. Great post

It is not about them, but about US.