Virginian-Pilot


DATE: Wednesday, June 18, 1997              TAG: 9706180549

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   44 lines




CHESAPEAKE DELAYS FEE INCREASE OF $50

When the City Council last month approved a number of new taxes and fee increases, the members also increased the fee citizens pay for receiving advanced emergency medical service from $150 to $200.

All the while, city officials said the increase would not affect the city's needy. This week, the council learned that the poor would indeed be billed the additional $50.

As a result, the City Council on Tuesday delayed the $50 fee hike for the uninsured for 60 days as it tries to work out a way to be fair as well as compassionate. The members did not vote on the issue.

If no solution can be found for the discrepancy, the fee increase may have to be rolled back, City Manager John L. Pazour told the council Tuesday.

The increase was earmarked to replace an old, inadequate emergency communications system that was cited as a factor in the deaths of two firemen last year.

The city is unable to write off the $50 increase for the uninsured because the city must bill all citizens the same amount, regardless of how they pay, according to City Attorney Ron Hallman.

``You kind of hope that these do not occur,'' said Pazour. ``But if they do come up, you have to go back and make sure you get it right.''

The $50 increase was to be coupled with a hike in the monthly charge for 911 emergency phone service to fund the new emergency radio system, the first phase of which will cost $10 million.

Work on acquiring the system will continue, Pazour said. A consultant will be brought in to analyze the city's needs.

Twenty-eight percent of those served by the city's EMS last year were uninsured and had to pay out-of-pocket, according to city officials. Less than half of those eventually pay the fee, according to the city. Collection agencies recover about $12,000 a year, city officials said.

Increasing the fee for the poor would, therefore, produce little if any new revenue, Pazour wrote in a memo to the City Council.

Councilman Alan P. Krasnoff, who had asked Pazour for proof that the fee increase would not hurt the needy, said Tuesday that he would reverse his vote on the fee increase unless something is done to soften the impact.

The $50 increase in the city's advanced life support fee will have no impact on Medicare and Medicaid patients, city officials said.



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