Comment by pclowes
2 days ago
I don’t think it is reasonable to expect to have ambulance coverage across the entire United States. There is a lot of land with very few people.
Choosing to live far away from others is also choosing to live far away from help.
If a service is highly variable cost dependent and is unaffordable for the average individual to pay out-of-pocket it is unaffordable for the aggregate individual as well.
There _should_ be some ambulance deserts.
It's very often not a choice. But also, those rural areas are often the breadbaskets of the united states. Taking care of our farmers is important.
Trying to frame it as a choice also misses a lot. It technically is, but you have to recognize there's a huge cost in uprooting your entire life and moving to a new location.
We give our farmers absolutely insane subsidies already.
It is not the government’s job to “take care of” anybody.
Everything has a cost, staying has a cost, leaving has a cost. The question is how much should the public be taxed to pay for individuals suboptimal decision-making? Or conversely, why am I subsidizing some billionaires remote horse ranch to have daily Postal Service and an ambulance standing by?
Can I move to the wilds of Alaska and then demand the same level of service as New York City? No that would be ludicrous.
W.Australia has a land area three time that of Texas with the bulk of the 2.9 million in population clustered about the capital city Perth.
In the rest of the state there are volunteer Ambulance services subsidised by state and federal government and a fleet of Royal Flying Doctor air ambulances.
RFD(WA) comes in at ~ $80 million AUD / annum in state support (for better or worse - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-24/rural-gp-slams-royal-... )
They assert to have a "value" to the state of $4.1 billion AUD over 30 years - https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/wa/
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> It is not the government’s job to “take care of” anybody.
That is actually the only legitimate function of government.
Sweet, open the borders then. It's not the government's job to take care of that (we had government long before we had 21st century style closed borders, so it's definitely not a requirement of government). More people = more money coming in.
> It is not the government’s job to “take care of” anybody.
That is literally the only job of government. The entire reason we have a government is to serve the citizens in some fashion or another.
Even for most libertarians, they'll view the government in having a role resolving disputes. That is "taking care of" citizens by resolving conflicts.
Subsidizing farmers so citizens continue to have cheap and consistent access to food is a great thing. Right up there with providing clean drinking water, sewage services, and building roads.
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The farmers can go F themselves. US soybean industry destroyed by trump tariffs, all I see are news stories about the very same soybean farmers talking about voting for trump again despite the pain. Reap what you sow!
Why should there be ambulance deserts but not postal deserts?
Directionally, I am also fine with postal deserts or at least different delivery expectations for very rural areas.
But also because Postal Service is much cheaper than an ambulance service?