What does peace of mind cost?
Somewhere between $15 and $70 a year for Monongalia County taxpayers, depending on the assessed value of your property.
Among the traditional levies on the November ballot, this year will include a levy to fund Mon EMS, the county’s only remaining emergency medical service.
As we’ve addressed in previous editorials, the nation is facing an EMS crisis, and West Virginia has been hit hard. Preston County lost two EMS agencies and Star City had to retire its volunteer ambulance service this year. And like many other things in life, it has all come down to money.
While WVU Medicine, Mon Health and the Mon County Commission have chipped in to keep Mon EMS running and available to residents throughout the county, the service gets most of its funding from insurances, whether private or government-funded.
Unfortunately, Mon EMS only gets paid by insurance if it actually takes someone to the hospital. Most Medicaid and Medicare patients take the ride (or, so we assume since they make up 75% of Mon EMS’s transports). However, Medicare will only pay the EMS $285, with a roughly $70 patient copay, while Medicaid only pays $324 (no copay). Private insurance pays more, but many patients don’t want to be stuck with the approximately $200 out-of-pocket expense. Uninsured people would be looking at an almost $1,000 bill.
In short, an ambulance goes out for every call that requires it, but the money doesn’t always come in.
If voters approve the levy, then we, as a community, can ensure that this vital service is always ready and waiting to respond to any emergency, anywhere in the county. If everyone chips in a little via property taxes, we can hopefully keep rates down, which would mean that no individual would get stuck with an astronomical bill or worse — feel compelled to turn away desperately needed help for fear of the cost.
The levy is expected to bring in approximately $4,470,399 per year, for a total $17,881,598 over four years. Not only will this hopefully keep rates down, it will hopefully allow salaries to go up, thereby attracting employees to a chronically understaffed service.
Like other first responders, paramedics and emergency medical technicians have to be prepared to face any situation at any time. Burnout is high; certification is expensive; and, in general, the pay isn’t great (nationally, less than $25 per hour for paramedics and less than $20 for EMTs).
The state is working on the certification part — it approved a grant to allow Mon County Technical Education Center to certify up to 50 EMTs, free to the trainees. Now, the county has to work on the pay part. Financial stress is a big part of burnout; when you’re job can’t pay the bills, the job doesn’t feel worth doing. Offering better wages will hopefully help recruit and retain EMS workers.
If you have questions, we recommend visiting https://monems.org/levy. The website provides almost any answer you could want, but if you still have questions or concerns, Mon EMS is offering a series of informational meetings leading up to Nov. 8. The first is tonight at Triune-Halleck VFD at 6 p.m. There will also be meetings at Mason-Dixon Park on Oct. 12, Blacksville VFD Social Hall on Oct. 17 and River Road VFD on Oct. 19, all of which will be held at 6 p.m.
