I've never had a problem with a police officer who stopped me. The point is to be polite and respectful and that attitude comes right back at ya'. In fact, one actually changed a tire for me a few years ago. The sun was in my eyes and I ran over a curb in a parking lot and he saw it happen. He certainly didn't need to change the tire. That went far and above his "duty". The silly thing was, I had to show him how to use the jack because he'd never changed a tire before
I sent cookies to the station to thank him.
I've had two trips in an ambulance and my granddaughter had one. The first two were free and the third cost $1200 for less than a mile. The first two were in my town and I think the service is or was (the trips were 15-20 years ago) free. The most recent trip was in a neighboring tow.
My first trip took me to the emergency room with a gash on my forehead that was bleeding profusely. When I got to the emergency room they were going to take me to the trauma center but once they talked to me they decided that there didn't seem to warrant that so they then asked me if I had insurance and I said yes. They didn't ask for proof. Because I had insurance, they called in a plastic surgeon. Otherwise, the on duty doctor would have put in the sutures to close the wound. I don't know whether they would have taken MRI's or not. The result is I have no visible scar across my forehead. But the plastic surgeon billed my insurance company $8,000. The insurance company actually paid $800. This is the scam they're talking about in another thread. The total "billed" cost for this hospital outing was $33,000 (15 years ago). My insurance company paid a total of ~ $4,000. When I saw the detailed bill from the hospital, I was so incensed that I called the hospital's billing department to complain. They charged $10,000 for 2 MRI's (head and neck) and another $3000 for some doctor in the far east to read them. I told them that I didn't want to buy the MRI, I wanted to rent it. Last year I had an MRI at a local "imaging" facility. They charged $400 plus another $250 for the doctor to read it. Still expensive but much more rational. It was this overcharging technique that convinced Congressmen who never bothered to research the problem to approve the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) in 2014. If I hadn't had insurance, I would have been on the hook for $33,000. The hospital would have negotiated that down to what they thought I could pay and written off the rest. In my case, I probably would have had to pay the whole amount. So it looks on paper like they're loosing a lot of money servicing the uninsured when in fact, they are not. Since most people have insurance, the actual payment is closer to 30% of what was billed. At the time of this accident, my husband and I were without coverage and due to his medical condition it was going to cost us $35,000 per year in premiums so we rolled the dice and signed up for our state's Medicaid plan. We paid the top rate which was ~ $7,000 per year but the coverage was capped at $75,000 annually so we were a heart attack away from bankruptcy. The reason the insurance paid only $4,000 was that Medicaid has the lowest reimbursement rate of an insurance company, even lower than Medicare. We even had to change doctors on the plan because our current doctor didn't take Medicaid.
