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We were going to take him right to the hospital. But his credit card got declined.
When Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, he was trying to explain to a lawyer how to get into heaven. We don’t know if the lawyer got the point or not — I’d bet not — but we do know one group of our fellow humanoids who definitely did not get the point: the people who come to our aid when we are so sick, or so badly injured, that we need to be rescued — after which they come after our savings, our homes, hounding us into bankruptcy if that’s what it takes to get their money. When Jesus said to the lawyer, referring to the Good Samaritan, “Go and do likewise,” this is not what He had in mind.
There needs to be a special place in Hell reserved for the new breed of air ambulance owners. Increasingly, they are equity managers, people rolling the dice in the Big Casino with ORPM — Other Rich Peoples’ Money. Keep in mind that these are people managing the wealth of people who are already fabulously wealthy, and simply want more. These human buzzards spied a perfect business model in air ambulances: the customers are usually unable to talk, let alone negotiate a price, and even if they could, are too desperate for help to quibble.
And so you have cases like these:
- The 9-year-old who was bitten by a copperhead snake at summer camp and was air evacked 80 miles to a hospital. The bill for the flight: $55,577.64. For $52,999.00, the patient could have taken a 116-day luxury ocean cruise from Miami, Florida halfway around the world to Sydney, Australia. Of course she was not given the choice at the time.
- The 13-year old in Florida who fell into the embers of a burned pile of leaves and suffered moderate burns to her hands, knees and shins. Paramedics called for air support and she was transported 40 miles to a burn center. Her father drove, and arrived at exactly the same time. The family was billed $24,000.
- At an accident scene described in Dr. Marty Makary’s book The Price We Pay, seven — count ‘em, seven — medical-transport helicopters landed and vied for the job of transporting one patient. In another case he described, a patient was transferred between hospitals aboard a Lear jet and billed $632,000.
The number of air ambulances operating in the U.S. has doubled since 2000, and now totals over 1,000. The average bill to the patient from an air ambulance company, according to Consumer Reports, was $32,895 in 2014. The average cost per trip of providing the service — $7,000. That’s about a 500% markup. Enough to make your typical wealth manager foam at the mouth.
Small wonder that a 2015 study concluded that one third of all air-ambulance transports were unnecessary (but still profitable). Small wonder that air ambulances crash at twice the rate of other air taxis. This is partially because they are flying in unfamiliar terrain, often at night or in marginal weather, but part of it, also, is that the lust for profits often overrules caution.
It is just plain appalling that this country, land of the free, home of the brave and all that — not only tolerates this predation by the wealthy on the helpless, but rationalizes it; not only rationalizes it but condones it; and not only condones it but institutionalizes it. Like the drug companies, the insurance companies, the hospital companies and all the other buzzards that flock to feed on the helpless, the air ambulance companies are rich, profitable, successful — and un-American in the most profound sense. Not to mention way out of step with the fellow who told the story of the Good Samaritan.
(Please note that I am talking about the financiers who buy and operate the ambulances, not the heroes who fly them and minister to the fallen.)
“Air Ambulance at Felthorpe Airfield” by Laurence Elsdon is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
“There needs to be a special place in Hell reserved for the new breed of air ambulance owners.”
No need. Just toss them down into the 7th with the fraudsters.
Or, on second thought, maybe they belong all the way down (to the 9th with them!), to keep eternal company with the bankers and the other most treacherous wretches our species can produce.
Tough call.
Man, I think Dante would have died a premature death from exhaustion if he were alive today, trying to assign circles for Americans.
Great stuff, Tom.
My 17 year old granddaughter attempted suicide. She was air-evacuated from Wilmar, MN to St. Cloud, MN. Flight time was perhaps 25 minutes. Cost about $17,000 for the flight. My son and Daughter-in-laws medical insurance was through her job. My granddaughter had spent four months living with her biological father in Chicago, but returned home just prior to her suicide attempt. In the meantime, the insurance company, without notice, dropped my granddaughter from my daughter-in-laws medical insurance plan. My son and daughter-in-law have spent over one year now fighting with the insurance company in an attempt to get them to cover this cost, but to no avail thus far.
Bastards.
It’s kinda’ like Cuba under Batista – only on a grand scale…and digital too! We’re a mega, Menckenesque banana republic. Get used to it.
Except that in Cuba all medical services are free.
“Cuba under Batista’ – not under Castro.
Oh.
As regular rubber tire ambulance fees are not fully covered in Canada I had to look it up. In Ontario the average ambulance fee is $CAN 240 (~$190 US). Some employer medical benefits will cover the extra fees.
YES Folks!! We have employer medical benefits in Canada. But it covers all the provincial non-insured costs such as private hospital room, vision and dental, prescriptions. Copay is usually quite low.
Air ambulance is covered by provincial health insurance. Probably the reason it is used only when necessary. A much more democratic use of resources. Ability to pay doesn’t enter into the calculus.
The national contrasts highlight the dysfunction. You guys are probably tired of “The Bern’s” pointing to 40 miles north of where he lives and relating the same observations. For the record, we may be a social democracy but are almost just as capitalist. Maybe more sometimes. I have observed once Canadians leave the homeland they can be downright mercenary – not a good look.
If the deal is longer waiting times and less sophistication in exchange for a single payer system with no medical bankruptcies, reason calls for that choice.
Keep in mind though, the demographic pressures in the west will overload any and all systems in the coming years.
But yeah… given the median income, those bills are farcical and appalling.
Beg the community, beg a corporation, beg a rich industrialist, beg a rich asset flipper…I have to confess, political façade aside, the US of A gives out a lot disturbing feudalism vibes…
I beg to differ, this does not describe feudalism, it describes capitalism. Feudalism was a set of responsibilities between peasants, landlords and a monarch. It was not democracy but neither was it capitalism, where the only responsibility is to profit.
Feudalism will come in time but it has normally been the response to a dark age, that is what we can expect next, but it will take some generations to hit the bottom.
Compare and contrast:
1. I was recently hospitalized for two nights in NC while visiting my in-laws – pneumonia. Total treatment: A chest X-ray, short course of antibiotics and a bag of saline. When I returned home to the UK I received a seemingly never-ending stream of bills from every medic that I had come into contact with in the hospital; they were all contracted to the hospital. The amount of paperwork I finally received was unbelievable. Ultimately the total came to $18,560. Fortunately I was able to forward everything on to my travel insurance company who paid everything without question.
2. Last week my son cut his hand and received stitches in the local hospital here in Plymouth, UK. No ID. needed on admission, no bills, no payment. The next day we went to our local pharmacy to pick up a prescription of antibiotics – again free here in the UK to those under 16 (and those over 65).
Why you aren’t revolting over there in the US I just don’t know. But I do know that I will never reside in the US again.
To paraphrase the satirical newspaper The Onion, Health Care Problem Can’t Be Solved, Says Only Country That Hasn’t Solved It.