Quote:
Originally Posted by Trollheart
Well in Ireland you're not charged for the ambulance. Do they charge you for calling out the fire dept too?? Surely these are community services paid for by, in our case the State, in yours, well, the state I guess? No?
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Haha, no an ambulance is not paid for by the government in the US. You get a huge bill, no matter what your financial situation. Poor people can appeal to the government to help them pay for it, or just refuse to pay and ruin their probably already ruined credit.
Local fire departments are a government service and they seem to respond to fires quickly, depending on the wealth of the locality. In the grey area are police departments, which are paid for by the state but do not necessarily respond quickly or even at all.
EDIT: the US and Ireland are both free-market capitalist societies on paper but in reality you have to consider land area, and especially population size. You can't compare Ireland to the US in terms of government programs, but you can apparently compare it to those of the state of Indiana, which of course has to answer to the federal United States Government, unlike Ireland. Look at
this.