What part of “No ambulance fee” does Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett and certain members of the County Council not understand? In 2008, the council sided with Leggett and voted 5 to 4 to charge constituents’ insurance companies hundreds of dollars for each trip to the emergency room. In 2010, Montgomery voters overwhelmingly rejected the fee in referendum, the first and only time a county law was so vetoed by the public. Less than two years later, Leggett is trying to breathe life back into what should be a dead issue.
Concerned that a fee would result in a dangerous reluctance to call for an ambulance when seconds counted, the Volunteer Fire-Rescue Association collected more than 50,000 signatures on a petition to put the issue directly to voters. Initially rejected on a technicality, the Maryland Court of Appeals eventually allowed “Question A” on the November 2010 ballot.
After a hotly contested and very visible campaign, 251,607 votes were cast. Montgomery County residents voted 54 to 46 percent to have the basic cost of an ambulance ride covered by their taxes — not billed to their insurance companies. Leggett has gone beyond merely pretending that this referendum never happened, He also tried, unsuccessfully, to have lawmakers in Annapolis intervene and prevent voters from overturning similar proposals in the future.
In 2010, Leggett erroneously claimed that emergency services would be decimated without the ambulance fee. In 2012, county spokesman Patrick Lacefield made the preposterous claim that the $94 million it would raise over six years to offset higher teacher pension and maintenance of effort costs would not affect residents’ insurance premiums. Leggett is choosing to undermine the democratic process and thwart the voters’ will in exchange for just three-tenths of one percent of the fiscal 2013 budget, which he wants to expand by 5 percent over the previous year.
To its credit, the council’s Public Safety Committee voted 2-1 against reviving the fee, but some council members are considering resurrecting it anyway. Committee chairman Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg, one of four who voted against the initial proposal, calls Leggett’s attempt “an arrogant end-run around the voters.” He is correct. Voters already killed the fee — the council needs to drive a stake through its heart and make sure it doesn’t come back from the dead again.
