Tocky on 10/10/2009 at 22:11
It makes no difference whether you have insurance. My grandson was hospitalized for food poisoning after being so dehydrated from the barf and pooping. Claim denied. Not life threatening even though people die from it, particularly kids. The hospital thought it was bad enough to keep him four days and CDC did a visit. Plus we caught the emergency care charging for a blood test it didn't do the day before when they called it a virus.
Actually it costs less than 75 grand to do an ambulance conversion including the cost of the fleet van, labor, and equipment. Much much less for a patrol car though they are beginning to favor the more expensive Charger lately it is still usually the Crown Vic. Somebody is making a killing. Some bodyshop that is.
Rug Burn Junky on 10/10/2009 at 23:22
I suppose it depends on the level of sophistication of the vehicles, there are going to be differences between basic transport ambos and emergency response vehicles. When you're getting into modern ambulances with mobile data terminals and other gizmos, costs add up quick.
I'll grant that that's probably not the norm - it's at the extreme high end, especially outside of large metropolitan areas - and most ambulances probably do cost far less. But my point was simply that the costs were not trivial, and the big picture includes a lot more than the salary for that time plus your standard .30 cents a mile.
I am fairly positive on the cost of the newest patrol cars in NYC and it's certainly not less than $60k. (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=888128#post888128) He crashed one last year on the way to a call, and became intimately aware of the cost of each vehicle. ;) The rest of the story was hilarious, but one that I can not repeat in public.
Tocky on 11/10/2009 at 02:34
Shame that. I would love to hear the story. And yeah I guess the more sophisticated the more dough, lord knows fire trucks are a bitch what with having to build them on a non-mass produced frame (comparatively) ground up and all. I suppose this is distracting from the discussion so carry on folks.
the_grip on 11/10/2009 at 18:14
Quote Posted by ilweran
I have no idea what the situation is in the US, but in the UK at least I can see that restricting healthcare for the elderly would possibly end up costing more through residential care - an example I would be familiar with through my job would be the elderly person who is caring for their spouse who has dementia. If the carer had restricted access to medical care you could end up with them both requiring residential care earlier then they may have done otherwise and the most likely scenario is that they would be separated.
ilwearn, I should clarify... I don't mean cutting care off entirely. I just mean perhaps not using the most top notch extensive care for each situation. One of the elderly people in my family (the one that ran out of gov't help) was on some pretty expensive care... presumably (from what my father-in-law says) more than she needed. Of course now that it ran out, they are very angry that she can't have it (suddenly what was maybe more than necessary became necessary... at least according to them).
I'm not trying to say leave the old folks out to rot. I have just personally seen that those providing medical care are happy to jack up what is provided especially when the government foots the bill.
In contrast, to be fair, I just read about a vet who has a heart stent. He just had a heart attack, and his stent is 50% blocked. The VA won't do a procedure to unblock it until it is 70%, so he is waiting for another heart attack so that he can get it fixed. That said... I am sure that there could be some level of preventative care to help - but this is definitely something I don't know much about. The only reason I bring this up is that this whole shebang is not something easy to formulate in terms of who can get what and when.
Rug Burn Junky on 11/10/2009 at 19:00
Quote Posted by CCCToad
Saying that the cost is going to be that high everywhere because it is high in New York is pretty misrepresentative.
You did catch the point where I already acknowledged that, right? And the fact that it still doesn't change my larger point?[INDENT]
Quote Posted by Rug Burn Junky
I'll grant that that's probably not the norm - it's at the extreme high end, especially outside of large metropolitan areas - and most ambulances probably do cost far less. But my point was simply that the costs were not trivial, and the big picture includes a lot more than the salary for that time plus your standard .30 cents a mile.
[/INDENT]Do try to follow along. Myopically focusing on only that aspect does you no good.
CCCToad on 11/10/2009 at 21:58
I made one point about one post. It wasn't "losing sight of the larger picture", it was a single, three sentence post which is hardly "myopically focusing" on one aspect. Based on the amount written, thats what you seem to be doing.
Rug Burn Junky on 11/10/2009 at 22:16
I focused on one discrete and complete topic - the cost of ambulances - and the entirety of your point and why said point was incorrect.
You're microfocusing on one particular component of my response, ignoring the response itself.
There's a fundamental difference.
CCCToad on 11/10/2009 at 22:31
my post was a response to your response to grip.
Anyway, since you seem to have a fixation with popping into any thread I post in simply to call me stupid (in much kinder terms than you put it), I hope that the public option will pay for treating Sociopathic Personality disorder. If you want to keep insulting me, do everyone else a favor and we can start trading barbs via PM instead of in a legitimate discussion thread.
dj_ivocha on 11/10/2009 at 22:53
Quote Posted by Tocky
It makes no difference whether you have insurance. My grandson was hospitalized for food poisoning after being so dehydrated from the barf and pooping. Claim denied.
:wot:
In commie Germany I've never heard of anyone having their "claim" (though I don't think there ARE even "claims" for emergency care) denied. I certainly haven't and I've had about 7-8 surgeries in the last 7 years (I came to Germany 8 years ago). Everything probably adds up to at least 30k+ Euros and I've always paid about 55-65 Euros per month.
On a side note, how much are your average insurance rates in the US? Here it's about 65 for students and IIRC starting from 150-ish for everyone else, though I'm not sure how high it can go.
Rug Burn Junky on 11/10/2009 at 23:02
Quote Posted by CCCToad
my post was a response to your response to grip.
Anyway, since you seem to have a fixation with popping into any thread I post in simply to call me stupid (in much kinder terms than you put it), I hope that the public option will pay for treating Sociopathic Personality disorder. If you want to keep insulting me, do everyone else a favor and we can start trading barbs via PM instead of in a legitimate discussion thread.
Don't flatter yourself, tough guy. Are you really so insecure that you see me as some sort of bogeyman popping up where-ever you go? I haven't once done any such thing.
Even here, I merely proved you wrong, which was an indictment of your argument and not your ability. I'll leave it to others to draw their own conclusions on your intelligence. And if you see factual statements about the inadequacy of your argument as an "insult" mayhaps you aren't ready to engage in "legitimate discussions" in the first place. You really have to work on these insecurities of yours.
Though I must say, (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1915442#post1915442) whining about (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1915526#post1915526http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1915526#post1915526) me in threads in which I hadn't even posted yet is a real good way to show that
you're not fixated on me.
You really should quit before you fall too far behind.
