Privatize Fire Fighting
Over the past couple of years, firefighters in Obion County, Tennessee, have watched rural resident’s homes burn down. Those residents had not paid their subscription fee to the fire department.
Liberal economist Paul Krugman asserted this is “essentially the same as denying someone essential medical care because he doesn’t have insurance.”
But because the fire department has already stated that it would have attempted to save anybody trapped in any house, the two situations are nothing alike.
A more ridiculous statement, (if that is even possible) made by Zaid Jilani of the political blog ThinkProgress clearly misunderstood conservatism when he said,
“The conservative vision [of America] was on full display last week in Obion County.”
Conservative values advocate a free market; natural growth in an economy through the relationship between supply and demand, driven by humanity’s creativity and desire to compete. This was not a private fire department, operating under the free market principles that govern companies. The Obion County Commission established a county-wide fire department in 1987, but has never provided funding for it. The county-wide department was not eligible to receive FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grants either. Instead, the county’s eight municipal fire departments offer unique fire protection coverage plans to its rural residents. Each department is “solely funded by the tax dollars belonging to each individual town or city.” Since they rely on taxes, which only come from residents of the respective municipalities, not rural residents, they are not obligated to extinguish fires outside of city limits. The government provided no legal way to recover the $500 fee that was charged for calls to rural residences, so the solution was to charge up front.
Each subscription plan went before a panel of municipal leaders before receiving approval. They could have included exceptions if they had wanted to. Mayor David Crocker of South Fulton said that his city would make no exceptions, which is why those rural residents who had not paid the subscription fee watched their house burn. Blount County charges the same sort of fee, but then charges $1,100 per hour to non-paying residents. Clearly the government is to blame, not conservatives who believe in laissez-faire capitalism. Even Obion County firefighters blame local officials for the problem, complaining that “it is becoming more difficult to convince municipal leaders that the municipal fire departments responding to calls outside the municipal boundaries and for which no compensation is guaranteed is ‘just the right thing to do.’”
If the government had followed through with creating a county fire department, then the rural homeowners could have been taxed, meaning that the subscription plan would be non-existent. However, I would propose a different solution. I believe privatizing fire departments would be most efficient. In the late 17th century, private fire brigades were formed by insurance companies so that fires could be extinguished as soon as possible, thus keeping the amount of compensation paid by the insurer at a minimum. There is no reason why private fire brigades could not work in today’s society, though they should not be affiliated with insurance companies.
Critics are skeptical of privatizing fire departments, but that is because they see the problems with subscription based firefighting. I agree; rural fire protection services should not be created. Firefighting companies should work as a form of insurance, not as a service. If it is a service, then nobody would subscribe, instead risking the possibility that they may have to pay a late fee if their house caught on fire. Therefore, creating the companies and sustaining their operations would be nearly impossible.
Private firefighting companies’ protection should be sold like insurance. Property owners should have to hold fire insurance, just like car owners must own car insurance. Ideally, homeowners who implement precautions to prevent a fire should receive a waiver from an inspector, or some other incentive to take the necessary steps to avoid a tragedy. The penurious residents of apartment or duplex units would not have to worry about trying to pay late fees for firefighting services, because the property owner would be required to hold this new form of insurance.
Adam Ondo :: University of Rochester :: Rochester, New York :: @JoplinMaverick
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Do you not recognize that you are urging a individual mandate for fire insurance?
Assuming textbook economics applies in this case, there would be savings incurred to the homeowners by encouraging competition between fire brigades and insurance plans. The move would be from a single payer, government run system to a semi-private mandated business.
But if you also take into consideration the record that government services have for significantly reducing overhead costs relative to the private sector (government services don’t need to buy TV adds) and also consider the economies of scale involved with government run fire fighting, its quite possible that a government run fire service could be relatively close or even cheaper than a privatized service.
The other argument to be made for laissez-faire fire fighting would be innovation in service. The profit incentive could drive companies to develop better ways of fighting fire. But innovation comes at an added expense to the customer, and, honestly, are the equipment and methods that we have currently so woefully inadequate that it justifies the additional expense.
There is no need for a reflexive urge to eliminate any service provided by the government. I have almost never heard of someone that was frustrated by the incompetency of their fire department. Why fix something that isn’t broken?
I am a firefighter for a rural community is southern California, more specifically an Indian Reservation, and I disagree with the idea of privatized firefighting companies, and I also disagree with not creating rural fire protection services.
Rural communities deserve the same type of protection as any other community, and fire departments provide more than fire protection services, they are typically also responsible for technical rescue, vehicle extrication, and most importantly medical aids (which in most communities consists of about 80 – 90% of their call volume). Also the danger of wildland fires should never be downplayed and while these fires are not directly destroying property, they that potential. The 2007 Poomacha Fire which was started in the fire district I currently work at burned 49,910 acres destroying over 130 homes and other buildings.
I instead propose an alternate solution, create volunteer departments for those rural communities that are funded through their tax dollars and provide the same amount of protection as well as providing occupational training for members of that particular community and surrounding communities. Volunteer departments are cheaper to run, while still expensive, but you do not have to pay the firefighters but they train to the same standard as their professional counterparts. This is the solution that San Diego County developed with San Diego County Fire Authority, which has proved quite successful. It is a great opportunity for younger people to get involved in the fire service by gaining knowledge, training, and experience required to make a career out of it. It has proved invaluable in the recruiting processes of agencies throughout San Diego, including the US Forest Service, California Department of Forestry, as well as all the municipal departments throughout the county.
I was not aware that this problem existed. It seems like something is way wrong there in Tennessee. Here in Hickory, NC, we have city fire departments and rural volunteer fire departments. When my chimney caught fire several years ago, I called the local volunteer fire department, which was a mere 2.5 miles away, while I was probably the scaredest I had ever been in my life. I live outside the city limits.
The firefighters assured me I did the right thing, and encouraged me to always call them if I ever needed them, that there was no cost to me. I hate that this is not the way it is everywhere.
To address concerns raised by Michael and Taylor I will try to clarify the point of my article. I am not saying that my town’s fire department would be more efficient if it were privatized, but that governments charging fees (and then refusing to accept late payments) is wrong. More importantly, that is not how libertarian/conservative thinkers would propose running truly “private” fire companies. The purpose of my article was to show how off-target Paul Krugman and other liberal pundits/economists were when they equated the Obion case to a truly “private” company. Also, volunteer departments are not a bad idea. However, I did not explicitly say this in the article, but I don’t think that it is the government’s duty to collect taxes and then provide fire protection to everyone. I would rather see the system I proposed.
Michael’s right, though. Why is it worse for the government to forcibly collect fees than to force you to buy insurance privately? Either way you’re being forced to pay for something.
Because as of right now, they are not forced to buy it, which means that if a property owner doesn’t pay it, tenants may see all of their possessions burned up. Also, prices may be more competitive. Like I said, I’m not saying that privatizing fire departments is a high priority thing to do, just that the government has not done a good job and that we could avoid some problems with a service based fire department if we made it more like an insurance.
I’m a paid Firefighter/Paramedic in MD and consider myself a staunch Conservative leaning-Libertarian.
Just like any other department or program in government the fire dept has it’s share of overspending and reckless use of taxpayer dollars. It is no exception. Beliiiiieve me!
The first and foremost commitment of the fire service is to provide 911 services for the taxpayers to it’s surrounding area. More recently the fire department in my jurisdiction has grown extremely top heavy with the addition of civilian personnel now doing the duties of what firefighters were doing before up in the headquarters office and training divisions to begin with (it was still top heavy before and wasteful). This adds to the ever-growing bureaucracy and inefficiency that plagues our governments. We should also rely more on our local funding, and not federal grants. Federal government shouldn’t dictate to the local municipalities how to use their money for common functions (unless it’s regional radio interoperability, USAR, etc.) Grant funding by the DHS is a joke and wasteful.
I can only speak for my fire dept, but I can tell you my county spends almost between 13-20 million dollars for the last couple of fire stations being built, yet neighboring more conservative counties spend no more than 2 or 3 million dollars per firehouse and they’re designed way better. Also, I think my fire dept could eliminate the code enforcement bureau, planning and preparedness section (which is run by mostly civilians), and possibly a couple others and privatize them, thus making the department smaller and more efficient, and possibly even placing those firefighters back into the field running 911 calls. I also think the education and training bureau, while very effective, is waaay too big. There used to be only 3 people working up in the EMS section in there. Now there’s at 7 or 10 people. WHY?! It’s totally unnecessary. It worked with 3 people before.. I can go on and on and on about what the county wastes it’s taxmoney on, but it would take too long to explain these things here. All in all EMERGENCY services in the county should be public, but the non-essential services could be 3rd party or privatized. That would drastically reduce costs for taxpayers and make the department more efficient.
I think that having privatized fire depts may work in some areas of this country (Particularly smaller, more affluent communities), and I’m certainly open to the discussion. But in areas that are more metropolitan the services need to be more readily available to them with the ever increasing call volume. Switching to a private fire department could potentially drastically limit it’s resources.. To my conservative and libertarian brethren ask yourself this question: How about privatizing the military? Or the police dept? It would be just as ridiculous. Just like the military and police departments, the fire department is a paramilitary organization.
As stated in the Preamble of the US Constitution, the most vital responsibility of the US government is to provide for the common defense of it’s nation. IMO that parallels to the state and local level with public safety (Police, Fire, and EMS).
I believe that unions have a right to exist as stated under the Constitution with the Freedom to Assemble. HOWEVER, no employee should be forced to join a union. Thus the entire country should be a Right-to-Work state. We should have a choice. Anything other than that is a lack of freedom.