<p>OK
so I get the fact the guy wouldn’t pay the fee to the county $75…</p>
<p>so </p>
<p>Are firefighters obligated to put out the fire?</p>
<p>Can we consider healthcare and if people don’t pay fro insurance or cannot pre-pay a bill etc?</p>
<p>Can we consider education and tax revenue?
People who pay property taxes which support schools vs those on the dole who don’t pay? Families like ours pay taxes that support schools which our children do not attend…
I have read about issues where senior citizens have voted to not support parks or school needs because they themselevs didn’t benefit.
What about those who have accidents in state parks/need expensive rescue from Mt peaks etc… and who pays that tab? Are people handed a bill, probably not. It comes from the tax base. </p>
<p>This is an interesting thing to consider…when you choose to NOT pay for a service and then need it.</p>
<p>I am not arguing for or against–I am asking us to consider the issue at hand…Where there are services for the collective good. What about polcie protection? See my drift?</p>
<p>This happened about an hour away from where I live and was widely reported on our local news. This is the second time this has happened in the last year or so. The fire department is associated with the city and the county residents don’t pay taxes to support them. The county residents are required to pay $75 per year in order to receive services from the fire department. If I lived in the county, I wouldn’t expect the police to provide protection for my home. I would expect the sheriff’s department to provide the service based on my tax base and my choice of where to live. I am surprised that I haven’t heard anything about insurance coverage being contingent on the payment of the annual fee.</p>
<p>This pay for the services approach is fairly typical in the region, not just in the rural counties where this occurred. Where I live (an incoporated town of ~30K population) in a large county, we have optional private fire/ambulance protection. You pay ~325/yr for unlimited service or you can pay by the hour/service. They answer 911 calls for all addresses (they are required, IIRC) and will bill the property owner if they don’t pay the annual fee. I believe they can place a lein (similar to a contractor’s lein) for charges not paid. I know that my homeowner’s insurance requires my subscription to the service as part of my rating (although they never seem to ask for proof of payment). I wonder if this guy may have a problem with his insurance company for not paying the $75 (cheap by any standard) fee. If the insurance company isn’t smart enough to realize that fire insurance is optional and issued him a policy without checking that status (no protection even on a fee for service), it is their bad (probably not to be repeated - they’ll learn quickly).</p>
<p>In the short run there will be a loser here (either the insurance company or the homeowner), but this will teach a few folks a lesson.</p>
<p>Now someone is going to ask why the county hasn’t done anything to force the homeowners to subscribe. Generally, requiring folks to pay money to a government entity in the region is a one-way ticket to getting voted out of office in rural counties. It is a tough sell even in the big cities. Tennessee is a low-tax, low-service state.</p>
<p>I can see both sides of the story here… If you pay no taxes, and you opted out of their 75 dollar fee… then they are not obligated to help you. However they came and just stood there helping his neighbor. Also, he did offer to pay them for their services and they still said no. You would think they would have some safe guard in place for this. However, if they knew he did that, other people would stop paying their 75 dollars and just risk it… so they probably had to make an example of it. I bet those townspeople are sending in their 75 dollars left and right now.</p>
<p>I work for an insurance company and I constantly have people who call me saying “Oh I didnt buy any insurance but I went in the hospital last week and they kept me for four days and now I need to buy a plan and I need to make it retroactive to the first of the month.” Then they get mad when you tell them no. I feel bad about it but there’s honestly nothing you can do in that situation. It’s like crashing your car and then buying insurance to cover it after the fact.</p>
<p>The guy offered to “buy the insurance” (pay $75) after his house was on fire! I can’t imagine a health insurance company allowing you to have the ambulance stop at the post office to pay the premium on the way to the ER while you are experiencing chest pains.</p>
<p>I can see this thread turning into a healthcare debate quickly…</p>
<p>The guy offered to pay all the expenses related to the fire, according to the article… which would be a heck of a lot more then 75 bucks. I honestly think if that was the case, they should have put it out and sent him the bill (+75 for coverage moving forward) after the fire was out. A health insurance company might say well the care that you received was before you started your plan so it’s on you, but moving forward we’ll cover you for x amount of dollars…</p>
<p>However, the fire department in the town does not have the means to enforce that verbal contract…</p>
<p>I don’t even think they have the ability to bill time and materials because they don’t do it for other residents. How would they figure out the cost? Is it the gas for the truck and the guys time? The town is not in a position to provide the capital expense of having a truck and staff and training etc. to play rent-a-rescue.</p>
<p>Personally, I would have hauled out the hoses and gone to work, even if it meant losing my job with the fire department. Sometimes “just following orders” doesn’t fly.</p>
<p>I was wondering whether the policy would still have been enforced if he had run from the house shouting that his 3 kids were trapped inside. </p>
<p>Obviously, the policy has flaws, and they should simply tack $75 on everyone’s property tax and provide the service to everyone.</p>
<p>The guy forgot to pay his bill (at least he claimed). For all we know, he was running behind financially (it is a bad economy) and pushed that bill aside for a month or 2. Perhaps he figured out nothing happens when he pays the car payment and not the fire insurance. I wonder if he forgot to pay his fire insurance as well? Trust me, the fire insurance company will treat it the same way. He may very well have intended to pay the bill, but who knows if he actually had the means. Most people run up their credit cards on frivolous purchases never mean to stiff the creditors, but eventually it happens. </p>
<p>And then again he could have forgotten to pay the bill. Only he really knows. The city fire department can’t know that when he calls 911. And if they come to the aid of all well-intended county residents who forget to pay their bill, you know how much they will actually collect each month? It may depend upon how many buildings burn.</p>
<p>As to the ethics of having a truck on site and not fighting the fire, since no life was at stake in the burning building, I cannot imagine anyone risking injury fighting a fire that you cannot legally collect for. I imagine if there was someone trapped inside, they (the fire fighters) would have gone in to get someone, but once out, turned off the hoses.</p>
<p>This wouldn’t be a story if it was a fire insurance bill that wasn’t paid and the house was totalled (happens more often than you think even when you get a truck out there promptly), this wouldn’t have even made the news and he’d be homeless - same effect.</p>
<p>If you require the city to fight this fire without the guarantee of compensation (the county could have contracted the city for protection and forced payment through property assessments, but chose not to for entirely political reasons), you are asking the city to disband its fire department or face the prospect of financial ruin. And then what? Do you require the next county to come in and fight fires? Yeah, it is a slippery slope argument, but right now I see a lot of governmental bodies acting in fiscally irresponsible ways with the understanding that the county/state/feds will bail them out if they get burnt. It is this kind of playing chicken that got our financial markets into a big mess. Do we need to do this with government as well?</p>
<p>If they like the current policy, goaliedad, then they have to live with it’s flaws. Why the outrage? Can’t have your tax-free state and your tax-provided services too.</p>
<p>The outrage is more a creation of the media reporting it (which even here is more liberal than the population) than the feelings of the locals if I had to guess. Remember, the media only gets advertising money if they can find outrage to attract attention. I think the locals would view it as a tradgedy and would pitch in to help him rebuild if he has some assets, but it would definitely be very limited. People in rural Tennessee are not unsympathetic and understand that people do dumb things.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, I feel really bad for the guy. I even understand him talking to the camera in his moment of “OMG, I’ve really screwed up”, but I can’t imagine him trying to make a fuss going forward.</p>
<p>^^ no, I ran the footage and got Ally Bank ads.</p>
<p>I think some one should stir up a referendom so that $75 will be part of the property tax. I sure the home owner got billed for it and did not pay.</p>
<p>I know the local fire department sends me a bill each year for 25 dollars. It’s not for them to come put out my fire. It’s for them to waive any co-insurance left over from my insurance should I need to use their ambulance services. I always think it’s a weird bill to send out.</p>
<p>The only way to see the flaws in a system that let’s people optionally opt-in is to have those that don’t pay the consequences. It’s important for people who don’t believe in taxes to see what can happen.</p>
<p>This whole situation is messed up on many levels. </p>
<p>First, for the county not providing a mechanism for (tax-provided) fire services, even if that means contracting with a neighboring county/city. What happens, I wonder, when a county property catches fire. Or an out of stater’s car catches fire, or is in a massive crash and needs extrication?</p>
<p>Second, for the firefighters for not responding and putting out the fire, even when they are parked right in front of it!!! This is at the very least a massive breach of professional ethics (and I’ve seen a few national firefighters associations say so as well), and probably criminally negligent. They have a professional duty to act to prevent the loss of life and property when there is a fire right in front of them.</p>
<p>Third, for the guy, knowing that he lives in a very messed up place when fire services work like this, not paying the fee.</p>
<p>We live out in the country and do not fall under the nearest city fire department. We pay an annual fee to a rural fire department and it has some sort of agreement with the city and other surrounding fire departments where they all help in each others jurisdictions. If we did not pay the fee they would still come out but we would be charged for each fire truck. Quite a few years ago there was someone in the neighborhood that had a fire and had not paid the fee and I think they were charged well over $1000+ per fire truck. I think that is a much better way than letting someone’s house burn down.</p>
<p>Our insurance discounts our house insurance by the equivalent of the rural fire dept fee though we would pay it anyway. There were a couple of years where we were not allowed to be part of the rural fire program (which is in the next county about 1 mile from our house) and there was no option to pay taxes to the city to use their service. I can’t remember why they wouldn’t let us participate. If we had had a fire we (or our insurance) would have just had to pay for the fire trucks. Sort of thing you don’t think about when you buy a house in the country.</p>
<p>No - because we already have a healthcare equivalent of emergency services - its called EMTALA. </p>
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<p>I imagine that even if you have never called the fire department, you do not object to paying the taxes that pay for the fire department (and paying the same rate as everyone else, including those who call every week). </p>
<p>For those who would argue that he should be held accountable for not paying the fee in an area where that is required for fire service, how do you respond to the fact that there are a lot of people in New York, Los Angeles, etc. who are behind on their taxes, haven’t filed in years, don’t pay taxes in that area (tourists, etc.) - LAFD doesn’t check with the IRS before responding to a call. Would you prefer they did?</p>
<p>To answer the OP’s original question, police and fire/ems services, like the military, are a public good/necessity that we as a society should pay for to protect everyone.</p>