Highway robbery

I’ve told my wife to drag my corpse to the fire station a couple miles away rather than call an ambulance

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The recommendation, which still relies on the convoluted private insurance industry, comes as nearly half of all ambulance rides in the US result in a “surprise bill” of often hundreds of dollars.

“America has decided to use an insurance system to spread the risk among many,” said Patricia Kelmar, senior director of healthcare campaigns at US Pirg, a consumer advocacy group.

Other committee members included emergency service providers, ambulance companies, insurance industry insiders and representatives of federal agencies.

Now, a hodge-podge of private and public entities provide emergency medical transport, and stick patients with surprise bills as much as half of the time, according to Pirg.

Privately insured Americans paid an average of $129m in surprise ambulance bills between 2013 and 2017, according to an article examining the problem in the journal Health Affairs.

Two of the three largest ground and air ambulance companies are now owned by private equity, which in some places has resulted in aggressive billing and collections.

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