Latest news with #AB716
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Ambulance rides in San Diego just got more expensive — this is why
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — For the fifth year in a row, the City of San Diego is raising its ambulance transport fees — this time by 18% over the next three years. But city leaders insist: most patients won't be impacted. The San Diego City Council approved the increase unanimously Tuesday, pushing the total hike since 2021 to just over 32%, according to reporting from The San Diego Union-Tribune. The cost for the most advanced level of ambulance service will rise from $3,151 to $3,717. Despite the eye-popping numbers, city officials say the increase will mostly impact insurance companies, not patients. Only about 11% of ambulance patients — those with private insurance — may be affected, The San Diego Union-Tribune also reported. Patients with Medicare, Medi-Cal or no insurance won't see any change, thanks to a state law — AB 716 — that caps those charges at fixed rates. Celebrities spotted running in San Diego's Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Councilmember Marni von Wilpert emphasized the hikes are tied to increasing costs from the city's private ambulance providers — Falck USA and American Medical Response (AMR) — who are billing the city $4.7 million more this coming fiscal year. 'We need to make sure we are doing the most competitive cost containment for our residents and delivering the best service,' von Wilpert said. The rising fees come as the city reconsiders how it runs emergency medical services. While a recent partnership with Falck and AMR has been financially successful, city leaders are exploring whether to bring ambulance services in-house — something cities like Los Angeles and, more locally, Chula Vista have already done. The San Diego Union-Tribune noted that Fire Chief Robert Logan said any move toward a city-run ambulance service would start slowly, possibly beginning with low-level emergency calls, while private companies continue handling life-threatening situations. In a twist, this year's rate hike — like last year's — skipped a required committee review before heading to the full council. That move appears to violate council policy, though no council member appeared to raise concerns during the vote. As the debate over who should run San Diego's ambulances continues, one thing's clear: the cost of care is rising — even if most patients won't see the bill. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Comedy influencer rips California law doubling his ambulance bill after he provided proof of insurance
Comedy influencer Robby Witt is calling out California state legislators for recent laws that have added new fees and confusing insurance "discounts" to first responder services. One of these laws made it so that the bill for his young daughter's ambulance ride became more than twice as expensive after he provided proof of insurance. In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Witt slammed the lawmakers behind Ab 716, a law that went into effect in California last year that gives uninsured individuals discounts on healthcare payments. It turns out that in Witt's case, having insurance doubled the price of the ambulance bill compared to if he was not insured – the "opposite" of how he thought it should work. "Your whole life you've been told, right? Like, you want to buy health insurance so that if something – God forbid – happens, then you will get a lower rate than if you didn't have the insurance. Like, that's what we've all been told our whole lives. And then the exact opposite happened," Witt, who has more than 580,000 TikTok followers, told Fox. Blue Sanctuary State Operating As 'Control' Center For Vicious Migrant Gang: Acting Dea Chief Though he's from the Los Angeles area, Witt also ripped the San Jose City Council for voting unanimously this week to allow its fire department to bill locals $427 for emergency medical care starting in 2026. As a local NBC Bay Area affiliate reported, "demand for emergency medical care significantly increased after the COVID-19 pandemic -- with 911 incidents reaching all-time highs since 2022," leading to the proposal from Fire Chief Robert Sapien. Read On The Fox News App "Implementing a first responder fee will align the department with other medical care providers, helping our community to sustain critical life safety services through cost recovery from medical care payers," Sapien told the San Jose Spotlight. With the city's approval, San Jose's Fire Department joins 23 other fire departments across the state that have implemented first responder fees. Witt told Fox he disagrees with the added fees. "We pay high taxes in CA to fund the fire departments. I don't like the idea of turning around to nickel and dime people in their time of need. As Americans, we have always been told you pay your taxes and that goes towards police and fire, etc.," he said. "And now you still pay your taxes, but here comes an additional bill. That doesn't sit right," he said, adding his own advice for the government: "If the states/counties/cities could mix in a little operational efficiency with our tax dollars [they] could keep these services running without the need to go after citizens for new fees. That's the recipe." Maine Universities Agree To Keep Transgender Athletes Out Of Women's Sports After Trump Admin Pauses Funding However, California's statewide AB 716 law is the one that hit the young father too close to home. Witt went viral on TikTok last month with a video depicting his phone call with a healthcare company after his daughter took an ambulance to the hospital for an allergic reaction to food. During the clip, which has been viewed more than 30 million times, Witt detailed his confusion to a customer service member over the $600 ambulance bill somehow morphing into a $1,300 bill after he provided proof of insurance. "We got a bill and then we realized that you guys didn't have our insurance, so we sent you the insurance and it looks like the bill went up," Witt told the representative in the now-viral clip. "OK, yeah, so the first thing you received, that's a discount that you received if you're uninsured. So, you're not eligible for the discount since you are insured," the person on the line responded. As the representative explained to him, Witt's insurance paid $1,078.85 of the $2,342.14 ambulance ride, leaving him with nearly $1,300 left to pay. Had he never provided proof of insurance, California law would have capped his payment at $600. "OK, so I'll get cheaper healthcare if I'm uninsured?" Witt asked the rep, pointing out the ridiculousness of his situation. Trump Visits California After Ripping 'Idiot' Newsom On Wildfire; Critics Bash Crime, Homelessness, Spending As the representative explained on the call, Witt's original bill being so low was due to the California law, which mandates that "a ground ambulance provider shall not require an uninsured patient or self-pay patient to pay an amount more than the established payment by Medi-Cal or Medicare fee-for-service amount, whichever is greater." The father told Fox he found the reasoning behind the law problematic, noting that people could just opt out of insurance to pay less. "My real problem, I guess, is that it's based off of insurance and why this bill wasn't written based off of income… So in fact, you could have a higher-income family than me who decides to say, you know what? We're not going to buy insurance. And now, all of a sudden, their ambulance bills are going to be cheaper, even though they're higher income." He then called out the lawmakers who came up with it. "And so, you know, sometimes when they go to legislate these things, I don't know if they ran out of IQ points to get it done, but it just doesn't make sense to me that you would offer discounts based on whether someone's insured and not based off of their W-2 income." Putting the whole situation into perspective, he added, "I paid $10,000 in healthcare premiums a year, and I was worse off on an ambulance ride than if I didn't do that. So just on the ambulance ride, I should have an extra $10,000 back in my pocket, and I would have got a cheaper bill."Original article source: Comedy influencer rips California law doubling his ambulance bill after he provided proof of insurance
Fox News
29-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Comedy influencer rips California law doubling his ambulance bill after he provided proof of insurance
Comedy influencer Robby Witt is calling out California state legislators for recent laws that have added new fees and confusing insurance "discounts" to first responder services. One of these laws made it so that the bill for his young daughter's ambulance ride became more than twice as expensive after he provided proof of insurance. In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Witt slammed the lawmakers behind AB 716, a law that went into effect in California last year that gives uninsured individuals discounts on healthcare payments. It turns out that in Witt's case, having insurance doubled the price of the ambulance bill compared to if he was not insured – the "opposite" of how he thought it should work. "Your whole life you've been told, right? Like, you want to buy health insurance so that if something – God forbid – happens, then you will get a lower rate than if you didn't have the insurance. Like, that's what we've all been told our whole lives. And then the exact opposite happened," Witt, who has more than 580,000 TikTok followers, told Fox. Though he's from the Los Angeles area, Witt also ripped the San Jose City Council for voting unanimously this week to allow its fire department to bill locals $427 for emergency medical care starting in 2026. As a local NBC Bay Area affiliate reported, "demand for emergency medical care significantly increased after the COVID-19 pandemic -- with 911 incidents reaching all-time highs since 2022," leading to the proposal from Fire Chief Robert Sapien. "Implementing a first responder fee will align the department with other medical care providers, helping our community to sustain critical life safety services through cost recovery from medical care payers," Sapien told the San Jose Spotlight. With the city's approval, San Jose's Fire Department joins 23 other fire departments across the state that have implemented first responder fees. Witt told Fox he disagrees with the added fees. "We pay high taxes in CA to fund the fire departments. I don't like the idea of turning around to nickel and dime people in their time of need. As Americans, we have always been told you pay your taxes and that goes towards police and fire, etc.," he said. "And now you still pay your taxes, but here comes an additional bill. That doesn't sit right," he said, adding his own advice for the government: "If the states/counties/cities could mix in a little operational efficiency with our tax dollars [they] could keep these services running without the need to go after citizens for new fees. That's the recipe." However, California's statewide AB 716 law is the one that hit the young father too close to home. Witt went viral on TikTok last month with a video depicting his phone call with a healthcare company after his daughter took an ambulance to the hospital for an allergic reaction to food. During the clip, which has been viewed more than 30 million times, Witt detailed his confusion to a customer service member over the $600 ambulance bill somehow morphing into a $1,300 bill after he provided proof of insurance. "We got a bill and then we realized that you guys didn't have our insurance, so we sent you the insurance and it looks like the bill went up," Witt told the representative in the now-viral clip. "OK, yeah, so the first thing you received, that's a discount that you received if you're uninsured. So, you're not eligible for the discount since you are insured," the person on the line responded. As the representative explained to him, Witt's insurance paid $1,078.85 of the $2,342.14 ambulance ride, leaving him with nearly $1,300 left to pay. Had he never provided proof of insurance, California law would have capped his payment at $600. "OK, so I'll get cheaper healthcare if I'm uninsured?" Witt asked the rep, pointing out the ridiculousness of his situation. As the representative explained on the call, Witt's original bill being so low was due to the California law, which mandates that "a ground ambulance provider shall not require an uninsured patient or self-pay patient to pay an amount more than the established payment by Medi-Cal or Medicare fee-for-service amount, whichever is greater." The father told Fox he found the reasoning behind the law problematic, noting that people could just opt out of insurance to pay less. "My real problem, I guess, is that it's based off of insurance and why this bill wasn't written based off of income… So in fact, you could have a higher-income family than me who decides to say, you know what? We're not going to buy insurance. And now, all of a sudden, their ambulance bills are going to be cheaper, even though they're higher income." He then called out the lawmakers who came up with it. "And so, you know, sometimes when they go to legislate these things, I don't know if they ran out of IQ points to get it done, but it just doesn't make sense to me that you would offer discounts based on whether someone's insured and not based off of their W-2 income." Putting the whole situation into perspective, he added, "I paid $10,000 in healthcare premiums a year, and I was worse off on an ambulance ride than if I didn't do that. So just on the ambulance ride, I should have an extra $10,000 back in my pocket, and I would have got a cheaper bill."
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
California dad sees ambulance bill more than double with insurance
(NewsNation) — A California father is raising the alarm after he said his ambulance bill more than doubled after providing his insurance information. Robert Witt, whose TikTok video detailing the price jump went viral, told 'Morning in America' that there has to be 'a more simple way' to handle insurance in the United States. 'The first bill we got without the insurance was $600, and then the second one was almost $1300,' Witt said in the TikTok, which has garnered millions of views. 'Okay, yeah, so that the first thing you received, that's a discount that you received if you're uninsured,' an unknown representative said in response. 'So, you're not eligible for the discount since you are insured.' Girl Scouts sued over alleged heavy metals, pesticides in cookies The representative pointed to AB 716 as the source of the so-called 'discount.' It's a law signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom aiming to prevent 'surprise' ambulance bills by capping the cost of a ride at an insured person's in-network cost. Uninsured patients are instead capped at the Medi-Cal or Medicare rate. In the TikTok, the representative explains that the full bill for the ambulance ride was $2,342.14 — and that his insurance only paid $1,078.85, leaving him with a nearly $1,300 bill. By providing his insurance information, Witt became ineligible for the uninsured cost cap provided by AB 716. The father told NewsNation he was 'absolutely shocked' to find out the bill — which came about because his young daughter had an allergic reaction — only grew once insurance got involved. He said he's found many people with similar stories since making his post. 'I make comedy skits online, and I don't have the answers to these questions,' Witt said. 'But what I do have, like you mentioned, is millions of people who have said, 'I can't stand my insurance.' We need to do something in this country.' CDC launches 'conflicts of interest' page about vaccine advisory panel Witt said making the health care landscape less 'complicated' should be a priority, but he feels as though politicians with medical-leaning stock portfolios might not have patients' best interests at heart. Witt went on to make two subsequent TikToks to call out what he described as 'insider trading' among politicians. 'It feels like they might, when they go to legislate, try to pad their own bank accounts a little bit,' Witt said. 'And that really just doesn't sit well with anybody.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
