City officials in a suburb of San Antonio, Texas passed an ordinance ruling that after one free call to 911 for EMT help, residents must then pay $55 for any additional 911 calls within that year. Is this going too far?

Please vote below and let Club RR members know your thoughts on this hot topic!!

I can see the city wanting to boost their budget, but c'mon. "911, we take Visa, Mastercard and Discover, what's your emergency?"

This is a lawsuit waiting to happen. The first time someone's unable to call 911 because they don't have a credit card and health is put at risk, there'll be trouble.

I cannot believe that they want to charge for 911 calls. this is the utmost despicable thing I have ever heard and its sooo wrong to do sumthing like this!! get a grip already!!!

Wow I am outraged that they would do this. There are already all sorts of taxes added to my phone bills for this service so for them to charge for it is outragous and just down right dangerous because people who need to call might not for fear they cant pay for the call. Call from a payphone its cheaper.

I work on an ambulance and this is so needed! They are not going to ask for a credit card when you call, they bill you. When you call 911 you activate serveral different agencies, until it is determined you don't need us we are out of service. When an adult calls 911 so someone will help them turn up the heat, get them a drink of water, remove a splinter from their finger, you need to be billed. And yes I have ran on all those calls We recently started billing for such calls and you know what some of the people that we saw almost every single day have found other forms of entertainment(which is exactly what I think we were to them). If you truely need 911 then you won't think about it and you will be billed.......we have always billed for the people we treat and transport. This policy ends alot of the abuse of the system. And when you really need an ambulance you will appriciate that because you have an increased chance of actually having an ambulance available to come help you. Oh and using a payphone won't help....we get your personal info when we get there.

I am thankful that the city I live does not charge to make the 911 call in a medical emergency as this would have cost my family a futune the last few years. My husband have to use 911 six times over the last year for me. We dont need the added bill to add to the medical cost for me.

Fine bill people if the call was not necessary such as a splinter but you should not be billed for calling 911 in a true emergency. Thats just not right especially since when the ambulance you refer to takes you anywhere you get a nice fat bill for it. My mother has to pay over $600 for a 2 mile ride to the hospital because she broke her ankel. I think that is plenty and the $55 to call 911 would have really been ridiculous on top of that.

There is only one charge for calling 911. If an ambulance arrives and transports a patient to an ER then they are charged for the service of treatment and transport. The purpouse of this charge is for all the people that do not get taken to a hospital but either did not need any medical attention in the first place or needed a bandaid or a splinter removed and then refuse transport to the hospital. It is to discourage chronic abuse of the system and to get back some of the cost of that these calls put on the service. This is a policy already in many if not most communities. It is just that no one is talking about it on national TV. If you honestly disagree with this policy go spend some time at a city based ambulance service. You will soon realize how much of their time is spent on complete stupidity instead of responding to medical emergencies.

let me try and understand this... we PAY an added tax on our phone bills for 911, we PAY local, city, and state taxes for our gov't to operate emergency services, we PAY for the ambulance ride to the hospital, we increasingly PAY $2500.00 or more if they put you in a life flight helicopter, we PAY by getting our hours cut so there won't be wholesale layoffs, we PAY by giving back some of our hourly wage so our company can "survive", we PAY by paying higher deductables and higher costs for medical coverage, we PAY because our coverage doesn't pay the over-inflated hospital costs and now they want us to PAY for these people to go to work so they can enjoy a higher than average wage and low-cost or free insurance program...?? why don't they give back all of our taxes and give-backs and we will cover ourselves and we will hire these poor-little medical "providers" IF they are willing to work for less !! (and of course ,do more)

What they need to do is charge only the people who call and don't have an honest emergency. It might help cut down on the number of idiots who call because Subway got their order wrong or something else crazy like that.

Is it all about money and greed? This idea is obscene. Charge the numbers of people who make frivolous, ignorant calls! Not Seniors or people with babies who have seisures, or families with Children who play and get hurt!!! In this economy, I am shocked that ANY community, city, or state would enact such an ignorant law!

I work with developmentally disabled individuals. One woman would call 911 routinely to complain about staff. Finally, the town where the group home was located told her that if she called anymore and it wasn't an emergency, she would be charged $50 each time. It did stop the behavior (money meant everything to her). I think the charge should be for frivalous calls only.

I am a 911 dispatcher for local city police, county deputy, ems, fire and public utilities. I think this is absolutely GOING TOO FAR. Where is the $55 going? Cell phones signals are not that reliable in this area and sometimes it takes three calls to bounce off the right tower to get to 911 to tell the officials about emergencies. Our county is the 13 largest in the state and we have handled thousands of 911 calls from kids playing with the phones to head car collisions. I don't think 911 calls should cost anything, it is all part of my job. Find another way to break us financially, but leave 911 out of it. Someday you might need it, twice! Jody

TAXES ARE HIGH ENOUGH.... USE SOME OF THE STIMULUS MONEY FROM AIG TO PAY FOR IT. THEY HAVE MORE THAN THEY NEED.OR SHOULD HAVE!!!!!

I being 8 months pregnant and using the EMT service 3 times already for premature labor believe that truly is going too far. I understand the need for budget increase and also lower false calls but maybe they could just enforce a new law for the false calls. they need to give it a break.

Jennifer / Goldsboro, NC

I am a 911 dispatcher and dispatch police, fire and ems. To charge for 911 calls is unthinkable! To place such a charge would only prevent those in need of emergency services from calling. With heart attacks & strokes minutes mean the difference between life & death. And what about those with chronic conditions that frequently need our services? The elderly, diabetic, sufferers of seizures, and chronic health conditions? How about the good samaritan who comes upon a vehicle down an embankment, or one who witnesses a crime in progress? Apathy runs rampant in our society now,charge them $55 and I believe most would not call. Sure there is abuse of the system, but by far the legitimate call volume far exceeds the abuse. 911 is NOT 411 directory assistance for those too cheap to pay the $1.50 charge for call info, it is not to see if school has been cancelled, to see how much it costs to park at the beach, or to complain about your neighbor's dog barking. 911 is for LIFE THREATENING EMERGENCIES ONLY. And please note, 911 dispatchers are not typically highly paid personnel, many make barely above minimum wage. In our Town, we are facing a 1% wage reduction, more than doubled insurance costs, and a reduction of vacation & sick time, and property tax increased of around 3%. The secretaries at the Town hall are making more money than we are, and we save lives. I'm not sure who "huricane" was referring to making inflated big bucks wages and the dirt cheap insurance, but it isn't the 911 dispatcher.

This is disgusting. I can understand fining people for false calls but to charge for calls themselves? I've called 911 a few times for people who've gotten in accidents.

If I called for someone else and got charged I would be doubly angry. This discourages people from helping others. And what if someone comes up to your house and asks to use your phone???

Well you know we are going to far out now with all this. Many people can't even afford there bills now and many don't have insurance , medicine, doctors and don't even get the help and the college kids that come out of college lose there parent's being able ot continue carrying them and then on top of it they can't even find a job because of the economy. Here the parent's preimums don't even go down as each child leaves home and college as they still have to carry it in order for each of the spouses to have coverage. This is such a big rip off in the US and then on top of it u go into hospital for say pnemonia and tht was always a few days hospitalization and now they can send home a 6 year old not even within 24 hours and stil a temperature. Our Health System really needs to be taken a look at and we pay all these taxes and even out rageous taxes on phone bills for this service and that service including 911 calls and even get charged to take care of NYC when u don't even live in NYC.

There is something really wrong with this society and I think we are going to have to go back to another Boston Tea Party and have it happen all over this country. Stop letting the foreigners come here and makig money and taking it back to there country as we have many of our own people to take care of here first.

Gary

IF they feel the need to charge for calling 911, at least make it 12 free calls instead of one, so it's approximately 1 a month, and then charge like $20 each call after that. Something most people can scrape up. But it would be *best* if the only charges were to pranksters or frivolous and trivial calls.

I can understand implementing a charge for non-emergency calls, even a fine in some cases, but for true emergencies, people should not be charged any more than what they're already paying for added phone fees, ambulance bills and hospital bills, etc. EMT's, law enforcement, and fire department personel aren't going to see this money, neither will those who actually handle the 911 calls. As far as some of these idiots who call unecessarily if they're really crazy enough to believe that what they're calling for is a true emergency, they'll still continue to call. I'm sure in these cases 911 doen't even send out anyone to respond. Those who do it as a prank aren't going to pay anyway, they'll only ignore the bill when it comes. It's the honest people who have real emergencies and who pay their bills who will be punished in the long run. My grandmother who succumbed to breast cancer last year at 75 years old had to make several calls to 911 when she was in her last days. Why should someone in her condition, at her age, and with all the medical expenses she was already paying, have had to pay per charge calls to 911. As far as small children playing with phones, I have a 2 year old. I don't keep 911 on my speed dial for that reason and I try my best to keep my phone away from her. If my child were to get a hold of my phone and inadvertantly call 911, she may get that call for free, but if this same child were to get hit by a car at a later time, God forbid, I would get charged for the actual emergency!
("Please Lord, let her call China if she ever gets hold of my phone. It's much cheaper!!"). This is just plain ridiculous!

I think that's crazy!!! What's this world coming to when you can't even count on 911. One day it may be one of the people who made this law who needs someone to call 911 and they may have already used their one free call and say too bad find someone else to call. That person may die because of greed. Besides it wouldn't stop the pranks. That's how they get their fix.

Where I live we get charged for the ambulance to come & take us to the hospital. To get charged for a 911 call is terrible. Charge the ones that make ridiculous calls. I know they will have to spend money setting up guide lines for what is justifable, but I already pay $285 to 350 to have a loved one taken to the hospital. I have even been fined for driving someone to the emergency room myself. Why is it hte people who follow the rules always get the burden for those who take advantage. CAN NOT WIN FOR LOSING!

If they want to cut down on false calls, fine those who make false calls, not those having real chest pains more than once a year.