Quote Originally Posted by Flixy View Post
....All things, including fire-fighting, come down to cost-benefit at some point....

Now, as long as the general fire fighting is adequate, I don't see anything wrong with buying better fire services, or health insurance, for yourself. Why not? ....
Flixy, have you read about the current Colorado wildfires? Around 100,000 acres have burned, thousands of people evacuated, many homes burnt to the ground. Of course local firefighting was inadequate, even state assistance wasn't enough. They had to call upon Federal funds and labor, calling up national forestry firefighters, National Guard, federal planes with retardants.

And the dirty little secret now coming forth.....is that those national forestry firefighters have no health insurance. Ain't that a kick in Smokey the Bear's butt? Those people are paid less than $50,000/year, to put their lives on the line fighting forest fires, but have no employer-subsidized health coverage. Some might belong to a union and get preferred group rates, but they still have to buy their own healthcare. They're "covered" by workmen's compensation, but only if they're injured "on the job". Months or years down the road, when they show up at the ER in distress (from lung diseases), or need to apply for Disability (from burns or other injuries).......they're on their own.

Go America.




edit to add link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...l-firefighter/