Concerning the recent article by Julian Mendoza “Town officials considering ambulance contract,” I have a couple questions. First, though, for those who may not have the necessary context, the long and short of the article is that the Franklin County Emergency Medical Services Committee has proposed that all towns either enter into a contract with an ambulance service or, if not in a contract, pay $350 per call to whichever service responds.
I do agree that having a contract with a responding agency is definitely the way to go.
My questions are these:
First, what law gives the Franklin County EMS Committee — a group which represents multiple services, but does not actually have any jurisdiction over the relationship between a town and any given provider — authority to set rates for responses or mandate whether a town and responding service have a contract?
Second, did anyone on this committee consider the relevance of federal anti-trust laws as they created a proposal which looks, on its face, alarmingly similar to prohibited forms of price fixing and collusion between multiple independent entities that collectively have a monopoly on pre-hospital health care services in this area?
Sorry to be the fly in the ointment, folks, but this scheme amounts to price fixing and the notion of mandating $350 per call for towns that are not part of a contract is not enforceable; at least not by the county EMS Committee. What an individual ambulance service decides to do as regards its contracts and rates is an issue between the service provider, the recipient of services, and the towns it serves.
However, when multiple entities get together to collectively set prices and rates, we should remember the danger of monopolies and why most forms of collusion have been banned in the first place.
Hussain A. Hamdan
Hawley