The Montgomery County Council is set to vote on ambulance fees this week — the latest chapter in a long-standing debate between the council and County Executive Ike Leggett over whether the county should charge up to $800 for emergency transportation.
Though the County Council tabled a bill last November that would have given the county the legal authority to institute ambulance fees, Leggett went ahead and proposed regulations in May that would require a person who uses a county ambulance to provide information to the county for billing purposes.
The council has until Tuesday to either accept, kill or put off Leggett’s regulations.
Leggett has pushed repeatedly for the council to approve ambulance fees, arguing that the cash-strapped county can ill afford to pass up on the $14 million a year they would bring in.
When the County Council asked Leggett not to include the anticipated revenues the fees would generate in his proposed budget earlier this year, Leggett ignored the request. And when the council was about to finish its work on the budget, Leggett again pressed the council to approve the fees.
“Forgoing approximately $14 million in annual revenues from insurance companies and the Federal Government is neither prudent nor justifiable in these trying fiscal times,” Leggett wrote, adding that no county resident would ever have to pay the fee if insurance didn’t cover it.
Most of the county’s surrounding jurisdictions have implemented a similar fee, Leggett added.
But a majority of council members have been steadfast in their opposition to ambulance fees, which they and opponents of the fee said could deter the sick or injured from calling for help.
“If one person takes time to consider if it is medically necessary to be transported, in those few minutes they could die,” Marcine Goodloe, president of the Montgomery County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association, said in a letter to the council.
Council President Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg/Rockville, said he thought a majority of council members were still against the fee.
“[Leggett] doesn’t seem to be taking no for an answer,” Andrews said. “So we’ll just keep saying no.”
