Off duty lifeguard saves boy, gets a $2600 bill for the ambulance

[Wags]

Once again, kudos to our fabulous healthcare system. Guy has no medical insurance? Who hires lifeguards and doesn't provider medical insurance? Two anonymous people step up and pay it for him. Let's depend on popular opinion and feel good stories on the news to decide who is worthy of health care. Maybe the sick can start hanging out at freeway onramps with cardboard signs. Oh wait, I see this all the time.

http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Off-duty-l...77456.html

[Lemon Drop]

I don't think many lifeguards have health benefits with their jobs. With the exception of some of the beach lifeguards, who have to be adults, that's usually hourly wage seasonal kind of work. The bigger question is why didn't his parents have him covered? Children in Washington are eligible for free or low cost state programs if the parents are lower income. (and the income limits are fairly high)

[cbelt3]

We don't pay for our local ambulance service, because we pay taxes to the city that provides it. But... this sort of thing is embarassing. There should be a structural exception for 'good samaritan care'. But that's up to the locale.

Good on the people who stepped in to help.

[the_poochies]

Another shining example of The Best Healthcare System In the World^TM at work. Yay freedom!

[Wags]

Lemon Drop wrote:
The bigger question is why didn't his parents have him covered?

I kinda think the biggest question here is: WTF is wrong with this picture?

[Wags]

Lemon Drop wrote:
I don't think many lifeguards have health benefits with their jobs. With the exception of some of the beach lifeguards, who have to be adults, that's usually hourly wage seasonal kind of work. The bigger question is why didn't his parents have him covered? Children in Washington are eligible for free or low cost state programs if the parents are lower income. (and the income limits are fairly high)

Oregon also has such a program. My sister is in this situation with her two kids. Her husband makes a couple thou over the allowed amount, somewhere in the upper $30k for a family of four. To insure them out of pocket would be another $1000/1500 a month. Not even remotely within their reach. Don't assume this kid's family can either.

[GGD]

There was another case last month where a lifeguard was fired for saving someone's life (just outside his beach area), after the story hit the news they offered him his job back.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/05/us/florida...index.html

[Lemon Drop]

Wags wrote:
[quote=Lemon Drop]
I don't think many lifeguards have health benefits with their jobs. With the exception of some of the beach lifeguards, who have to be adults, that's usually hourly wage seasonal kind of work. The bigger question is why didn't his parents have him covered? Children in Washington are eligible for free or low cost state programs if the parents are lower income. (and the income limits are fairly high)

Oregon also has such a program. My sister is in this situation with her two kids. Her husband makes a couple thou over the allowed amount, somewhere in the upper $30k for a family of four. To insure them out of pocket would be another $1000/1500 a month. Not even remotely within their reach. Don't assume this kid's family can either.
$30K would be very difficult to live on.
However, Oregon's Healthy Kids program accepts families of 4 with much higher incomes than that. Have your sister check this out.
http://www.oregonhealthykids.gov/familie...tions.html

[Wags]

They make a tad bit more than the limit, faulty memory. Still, an extra $1k or more per month for a family of four is really not doable even at just over $46k. My point being there are plenty of responsible loving and hard working parents who are forced to make hard choices. I wouldn't be too quick to place the blame on the parents .

[Lemon Drop]

Wags wrote:
They make a tad bit more than the limit, faulty memory. Still, an extra $1k or more per month for a family of four is really not doable even at just over $46k. My point being there are plenty of responsible loving and hard working parents who are forced to make hard choices. I wouldn't be too quick to place the blame on the parents .

I agree about hard choices. But the insurance for kids in Oregon is not $1,000 a month. It's $50 a month. Similar in Washington, where there is Washington Health Program for families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid or S'CHIP. Qualifying income levels are fairly high, premiums are very low. It's not cadillac insurance but it would cover an emergency such as the one this lifeguard experienced.
I think it's fair to ask why kids aren't covered when these programs are out there.

Low-cost

For the low-cost option, families pay a small portion of the monthly premium on a sliding scale; how much they pay depends on their income. On average, families with two to four children will pay a total of about $50 a month for health coverage for all kids. American Indians and Alaska Natives who qualify for the low-cost option do not pay monthly premiums.

A family of four that earns between $46,300 to $69,380 a year may qualify for the low-cost option.