Another Slap in the Face to EMS workers

[JCicco345]

"I don't think that municple employees should have death benefits provided by tax dollars. Many municple employees have death benefits provided by the town government. Towns can obtain life insurance policies as a package deal and thus provide death benefits to their own employees with a modest cost to the employee."

But if they are giving the money to municple police and fire, then why wouldn't municple EMS get the money. Granted it is hard in some instances to serperate private vs. municple. What if you work for a private company but are working on a truck or doing a call for a municpality. I guess there a details to be worked out. All i was trying to say if you are covering municple fire and police, EMS should be in there.

[Dustdevil]

I agree that a house divided cannot stand. it disappoints me that we cannot offer a solid front on issues such as this, that our national committees and associations cannot use their leverage on this issue. EMS will probably always be the step-child of other agencies until we get our act together...

You are correct there. However, a "solid front" proclaiming ourselves to be "public safety" is certainly not the answer to the issue of separating ourselves from those "other agencies" we are step-children of. That only perpetuates the problem. The only "solid front" that will get us out of this mess is to present ourselves as medical professionals, not as civil servants. Once that is achieved, and wankers quit giving their services away for free, our employers -- whether they be public or private -- will have to step up and provide reasonable benefits or face expensive shortages that will kill their profits and budgets worse than any simple life insurance premium.

I don't see what the big attraction is here. Why must you have $100k from the state to go to your survivor? Is that money somehow better than the same $100k you would get from a non-governmental policy? Sounds to me like people are more hung up on being able to identify themselves with "public safety" than they really are about any kind of benefits. Sounds like wackerism to me.

[cosgrojo]

Ding...... ding..... and ding.

I used to believe that the key to overcoming the seemingly inherent direspect that EMS receives in our society as an educational variance. I also believe that this theory has been espoused 100,000 times over on this very forum, and shall not re-hash it. But I have recently changed my mind and now blame wackerism on any and all isuues regarding our disrespect. Fire and police can get away with wackerism because of their long-standing marketing campaigns on television and in print. When we do it we look like ya-hoo's.

Down with ya-hooism!

BTW(this rant is admittedly slightly, and probably innaproppriately off topic... but I don't care)

[emt-b_wa]

Lets face being it the private sector we can not Rely on the goverment to provide any sort of benniffit for our death. It would be nice but thats asking alot. My company pays 50k for A+D And gives us the option to buy a supplement up to 1 mil. The best thing any one can do for there families is to have some for something ever happens.

[Richard B the EMT]

Perhaps I have no real understanding of this, but, private, municipal, county, state, or federal employee employee, isn't this initially covered by some form of Worker's Compensation Death and Dismemberment policies?

[CAPEMT]

Richard B, the EMT Perhaps I have no real understanding of this, but, private, municipal, county, state, or federal employee employee, isn't this initially covered by some form of Worker's Compensation Death and Dismemberment policies?

Worker's Comp for the most part is only for injuries...I know here in the state of Tennessee that workers comp only pays for injuries and pays only 66% of your full time wages while you are out of work. Federal emloyees, however, have the Federal Employee Compensation Act, which covers even Civil Air Patrol members killed while out on a federal or Air Force assigned mission....

Just a thought....

[Rescue0ne]

Death benefit for police, fire OK'd

By TOM FAHEY

State House Bureau Chief

Friday, Mar. 30, 2007

The bill dropped language that included emergency medical technicians for eligibility. Instead, it creates a study committee that would find a way to cover them, and will decide how to distinguish between public and private service EMTs.

Um...if they were public service EMS, then award the benefit? I know, I know...what if they are both? Well...what about the city firefighter who gets killed while working part-time as a medic or emt for a private ems service?

If they were working public service at the time of death, then award the benefit..but private service, don't?

What do YOU think?