Letters for June 9, 2016

Two is better than one

Re “Fighting for double duty” by Patrick Groves (SN&R News, June 2):

Let me present you the cold, hard facts: Private ambulance 911 service is being squeezed and they’re looking to cut corners at all costs! AMR is one of the few capitalized firms who can provide a service; however, it comes at a cost. Their employees start with salaries between $40 and $60K per year, with few benefits. That’s for full-time employees. They hire lots of part-time employees too! After five years the employees are broken, burned out and have no lasting connection to their communities. Well, after sitting in an ambulance on a street corner for 2,000 hours a year, with an ambulance without A/C—what do you expect? Employees are constantly being hired and the skills of a paramedic take years to develop. With MediCal paying $110 a transport, Medicare $400 and private insurance $800 a transport, the privates will slap a patient with a $2,500 bill. Oh, and since your insurance doesn’t pay the full amount, you’re forced to pay the balance under “balance billing.” This is great news if you have a high deductible Affordable Care Act plan. In fact, the private ambulance firms are so squeezed they want to increase your response times for an ambulance in order to save costs. Oh, and they’re looking for public entities to subsidize them, too! Their next revenue-seeking opportunity is community paramedicine. So, is that really cheaper than our reliable, professional firefighters at SFD? Oh, and the single-function fire ambulance model isn’t working too well in San Francisco. I hear the employees are run ragged, kept out of the firehouses, and treated like second-class citizens. The opportunity to become a firefighter there is nothing but a smoke-and-mirrors show! Keep the dual-function firefighter medic model! Better training, more versatile and a career-performing job.

Jeff Fredrick

Sacramento

Do the hot math

Re “Fighting for double duty” by Patrick Groves (SN&R News, June 2):

What the author fails to provide are hard facts. Sac Metro Fire has the same call volume as the Sac Fire Department does. They run out of 42 fire stations as compared to 24 for the city. Their daily staffing with three on a company is greater than the city because they staff more engines to do the same job. Roseville Fire has nine fire stations covering a population of 120,000 people. You can compare that to the Natomas area of Sacramento, which has the same population and only has three fire stations. The population increases daily in Sacramento by 100,000 people who work, but do not live in Sacramento. Sacramento is an urban city. All the comparables in the area are suburban cities.

Craig Wiedenhoeft

Sacramento