I only weigh 130. Can I get a discount?

I'm confused. Is the new fee $543 or $1172? I need to know . . . cuz I'm fat.

@factotum:
If a normal ride costs $629, and they want to charge overweight people an extra $543, the total of those two numbers is $1172. They have to pay the basic cost of the ride, plus the extra bariatric charge.

What do I think?

I think the ambulance services and hospitals in general WAAAAAAAY overcharge for what they provide. So now they're charging more? Not surprised. One trip to the hospital in an ambulance, a couple of Tylenols, a few hours in the building, and no insurance can very easily run you upwards of $10,000. I know this because they did it to me. The healthcare system in the U.S. is severely broken, and I don't see it getting fixed during my lifetime. The next time I visit a hospital or ride in an ambulance, it will be when I'm dead.

Can you imagine how much Marxist healthcare would cost Americans if we let all overweight people get treatment on our dime?

Charge 'em.

@Steve Pan: Probably less than the outrageous extortion going on now. Currently, you either pay through the nose to the insurance companies for their "protection" (hmmm, the Mob comes to mind here), IF you're lucky enough to be accepted, what with all of your 'prior conditions' and all, (like being born), or you pray nothing ever happens to you because you're facing bankruptcy if you need help.

@Steve Pan: Why is it that every other first world country can have UHC and also have better care and less spending per capita?

Why are we still subservient to corporations that don't give a crap about anything besides the almighty dollar? At least the government is somewhat more accountable than some corporation.

So step back from your shrine to Ronald Reagan and please stop trying to derail anything decent.

(Also, screw most of the Democrats for capitulating to special interests and the Republicans. We need more Kucinichs, Feingolds and Sanders and less Baucuses and Dodds)

Ambulances should really be publicly operated, since government first-responders feed them their patients, government insurance generates most of their revenue, and government subsidized hospitals take the patients off their hands.

@BZMedia: You had to go to the hospital to take a couple of Tylenols? And you needed a ride? I'm guessing there's more to the story.

I know a few guys who push that 350 limit because they are really tall and bulky, not fat. Sounds a bit unfair.

@PunditGuy: There is, but that's what it boiled down to in the end.

@Steve Pan: No, but after that comment using an appeal to ignorance, a non-sequitur/straw-man argument, and a little poisoning of the well thrown in for good measure, please, tell us. Do try to keep yourself under two logical fallacies in your response.

@BZMedia: I agree. In March, I had to call the ambulance because I blacked out after being ill for several hours. They charged me $953 for a 1-mile ride to the hospital. They took my BP and blood sugar and put me on oxygen. That's it.

It turned out that I was only dehydrated and just needed IV fluids, but because I have severe hypertension and chronic kidney failure, I couldn't chance staying home and seeing if I felt okay after blacking out. The hospital bill was "only" $2,953 - why should a one-mile ride cost 1/3 of a 5-hour hospital stay, x-rays, lab work, medication, and nursing care?

@DerangedRoleModel: You just said everything that was in my head. As someone with a chronic medical condition I am totally fed up not just with the state of health care but the blatant BS spewed by people who are doing nothing but protecting corporate profits at the expense of everyone and their health.

Maybe I am just cranky because I spent 4 hours last month sorting through one of our kids medical bills. I found multiple errors and a fraudlent claim to our insurance.

What really burns me is that drugs are insanely expensive. Drug company profits are coming before theraputic benefit at the clinic level in the way doctors prescribe. Our health insurance is the second most expensive monthly bill only smaller than our mortgage. Yet we still get sunk for a huge chunk of money for out of pocket and medications. The system is a total failure. We don't need reform. We need a new system.

I know it is mean to wish someone has something bad happens to them. But I wish all these idiots spreading disinformation about the current system would fall ill and get to experience it for themselves. It is about the only thing that would wake them up to reality.

@Steve Pan: Well, I laughed, anyway.

Our daughter cut her hand on a rusty something or other, and we took her to the doctor, who told us to go to the emergency room because she needed a special shot (sorry can't remember exactly what it was called) because her DTaP series wasn't complete. Long story short, we had a three hour wait, she got hurt a couple times by the other little kids who were waiting in the ER, all they did was put a crappy bandage on it, after taking off the beautiful bandage job our doctor had done, and they wouldn't even give her the special shot, because she was too young. Just gave her the DTaP booster. Then they misbilled us for a head injury and SUTURES! Besides feeling utterly stupid after that experience, it only reinforced my belief that 9 times out of ten, the doctor can't do anything more than I can (the only reason they gave us the booster is because she was due for it, not because it would actually help a whole lot. They even said that.) I will never again go to the emergency room unless I absolutely have to. BTW, she was perfectly fine.

@bohemian: The article does say they will take that into account and us discretion when making a decision.

But whatever the reason IF it costs more it is "fair" to charge it.

@PunditGuy: Nope, happened to my best friend. She got in a car accident...her car was severely smashed up, but she only had bumps and bruises. They made her go to the hospital...understandable, they need to cover their asses.

But oh wait! They can't take her to the hospital 5 minutes down the road! This is a "serious accident"! Note: her car got the worst of it, and she was up, walking, talking, perfectly fine. Nope, they had to take her to the bigger hospital, 30 miles away. And -- you guessed it -- she got charged for every mile.

She arrived at the larger hospital. They told her to move her limbs. They told her to go home. No joke. No Tylenols, no checking for whatever hidden problems the medics were convinced could have been caused by the "serious accident." She got charged over $1000 for the ambulance ride ALONE. She hasn't even gotten the ER bill yet.

@bohemian: I think that's what they meant by "use their discretion" and "look at length and width." There are definitely going to be people who weigh 350 but don't require any special sort of equipment, and they might not be charged. Could all depend on the day and the mood of the paramedics, though...who knows.

@chatterboxwriting: I know, it's ridiculous. I remember reading the breakdown of my bill. It's been a long time now, but I think the Tylenol was billed at something like $653 per pill.

@chatterboxwriting: They're not charging you by the mile. If, god forbid, your issue turned out to be much more serious (resulting in much higher hospital costs), the ambulance ride would have been a lower percentage of the entire cost.

@Coles_Law: at 125, I totally agree.

As a volunteer firefighter/EMT, I can understand why a private provider would do something like this. There are times when we need to call for manpower assist from an engine crew because of the weight of some patients. We don't charge extra for it, but we're utilizing all volunteer labor in that case.

We've also had to, in one instance, bring our truck to an EMS call(100' platform), cut out the person's 2nd story wall, and use the platform to bring them down to ground level because they no longer fit through their doorways.

I think this is more than fair. You want to be fat, you pay for it.

I would like to know why fat people think it is okay to make "Thin" comments to me (being 125 lbs). Fat people telling me "you need to eat more" is deemed to be fair game. But if I say "Stop eating that, lard ass" people get angry. I am healthy. They are not. Why the double standard?

HAPPY 4th!

Why not just use a flatbed pickup.

@ToddMusket: See, now for unusual circumstances, I don't have a problem with some extra fees being attached to compensate. But I do have a problem with the typical, average, perfectly normal ambulance ride costing thousands of dollars. For what it costs to take the average person to the hospital, they could drive across the entire country, stop for food every hour, stay in a few hotels, and still enjoy a week's vacation.

BTW, thanks for volunteering. You guys don't get enough credit.

@DerangedRoleModel: The government is more accountable? WHAT?! The current administration has made executive orders allowing bonus payouts under the bailout and also pardoned anyone who may have committed torture. And you also suggest that we put our eggs in the basket of a entity that shouldn't care about being viable? So when this entity starts losing money, where will it come from?

@BZMedia: Well that is because the any hospital that takes one cent of any sort of federal funds has to treat people who can't pay. So who is to blame, you guessed it - the fools in Washington who want to solve the problem they created by making an even worse one.

@ToddMusket: I've always wondered how people can get that large. And what I mean by that is that once you cease to be able to leave your house, you should, in theory, be forced to lose weight to a point that you can then leave the house for more food.

@I Love New Jersey: So then I should just refuse to pay the next time I go. The gov will pick it up.

@Steve Pan: Haha, yeah man, totally. What if we had to treat overweight people as real human beings? That'd be a real hoot.

@icantreplyright: What the hell do you mean 'want to be fat'? Being fat is not a conscious decision.

Another misconception is that you can't be forced to take an ambulance. Completely untrue. You can, you will, and you'll be billed for it.

@BZMedia: As long as you can't afford it, yes.

@Steve Pan: Ok, let's talk about "Marxist" Healthcare. As a proud Canuck mine is a mix of provincially supplied and private (my employer's plan fills in gaps not in the provincial one - ie drug plan, dental.) In the last six months, I've:
- visited the dentist for a cleaning/exam ($15 out of pocket)
- refilled 2 asthma meds (Flovent/Salbutamol) ($20)
- visited my family doctor ($0)
- visited a GI specialist on referral ($0)
- went to the hospital for an upper GI Scope ($0)
- have another scheduled to complete biopsy samples ($0 - in two weeks)
- got a 3mo supply of proton pump inhibitors ($10)

Pharm costs are my co-pay - the plan absorbs the rest and, oh, yeah, meds supplied in the hospital for the procedures are paid by the province.

So, that leaves me out of pocket $45 plus the cab ride back from the hospital.

Canucks pay both federal and provincial tax (calc'd separately on the same form, my blended tax rates about about 16% federal and about 13% provincial)

My employer's plan is funded by them. I don't pay any extra premiums.

Granted, if I lost my job, I'd have to pay retail for drugs and dental - but the doctor, specialists visits and the hospital procedures would continue to be free as they would if I weighed 500lbs.

Now, explain to me why this is bad??

@bohemian: i don't have a problem with charging people over 350 lbs. there really is no reason to be that heavy regardless of height or bulk. to compare, i looked up shaq who is 7-1 and 325 lbs. if he is not over the 350 lb mark then there really is no reason for anyone else to be

@katstermonster: Shaq is always getting a break!

@WarOperationPlanResponse_GitEmSteveDave: "As long as you can't afford it, yes."

Yeah, I tried that. Because I didn't exactly have $10k in my budget for unplanned trip to the hospital. They don't care. You get billed, rebilled, and sent to collections. Just like anything else. At no point did anyone ask me "can you afford this?"

The sad part is, they might charge this but, for most it will never be a fee that is never collected. I just don't see state wellfare or Medicare paying for the extra charge and I doubt many of these patients have the ability to pay. The ambulance service is compelled to transport regardless of ability to pay and, the hospital is compelled to care for these patients regardless of ability to pay. So good luck collecting this extra fee. I don't see the insurance company, state wellfare or Medicare paying regardless of what the service wants to charge.

@Julius Seizure. (Mourning Mollie Sugden): And yet when rich Canadians need advanced medical procedures, they still come to America to do them.. Huh. Go figure...

@Radi0logy: "And yet when RICH Canadians...."

You don't see a problem with that statement at all?

I think if I ever need to go to the emergency room I'll call a taxi. Should take roughly the same amount of time.

@ToddMusket: I hope that person ended up footing their own house repair bills. It's ok to be fat, but when it's a personal choice, their should be consequences to be paid for.

@Julius Seizure. (Mourning Mollie Sugden): From the New York Times:

"In 2006, 1 in 9 Canadian-educated physicians practiced in the United States. Collectively, this is equivalent to having 2 average-sized Canadian medical schools dedicated to producing physicians for the United States."

Also,

"The results of the study highlight the lure of larger physician salaries in the private market-based U.S. medical climate, versus the government-run Canadian system, where physician salaries are limited to what the government will pay in compensation."

That seems problematic to both physicians and patients in Canada, if you ask me.

@Steve Pan: You've just hit on my biggest fear with health care reform. Obese people alone need to pay the expenses of being obese. Obesity is a lifestyle choice of such exploding popularity that it will undermine this country's health, economy, and even its ability to defend itself. As the obesity trend grows, there are fewer healthy people to help shoulder the cost.

@GC: You'd be hard-pressed to argue your opinion logically. I'm a tad big for my height, and do you know why that is? (Hint- I'm not "big-boned", nor do I have "bad genes".)

It's because I eat too much and don't work out enough! Ding Ding Ding!

Both of those are conscious decisions I've made.

I know I've had issues getting larger folks onto stretchers. To the point where I had one of our old spinal boards make a disturbing 'creaking' noise.

@GC: Except for extremely rare cases, it certainly is a conscious decision to eat more and not take care of yourself. Worse, it's a conscious decision, and an inexcusable one, to raise children in that lifestyle.

As another person considered small by today's standards, I'm shocked when someone puts me down for that, and scoffs at the fact that I'm a runner. Somehow those good habits have gone from being admired to being resented as making obese people feel bad about themselves.