It DOES happen all over. A doctor friend of mine complains bitterly about Medicaid patients getting free cab rides while he gets paid SQUAT by Medicaid for providing health services to our growing population of indigents.
My daughter was an EMT and she said the welfare class treated the ambulance as a taxi and expected to be shuttled around to the hospital in it (even for visiting another patient)! They would become outraged if told they had to take a taxi, even though they were fully reimbursed for it, unlike the average working stiff, who had to pay for his own subway or bus ride.
A Mexican guy that used to work where I worked before I got laid off, got sick with Lord knows what and had a hospital stay and lots of doctor visits. Being Mexican they have “advocates” who help them milk the system. He told me if you don’t have a ride to the doctor’s office they will send a car to drive you. Oh and by the way, he chose not to buy the insurance our employer offered and paid for in part. So when he went to the hospital and all the doctor visits he didn’t pay one damn dime. Now I can guarantee that if it had been me I wouldn’t have had all those favors. I know because the one time I went to apply for food stamps because I was making $250 a week, husband was out of work and I had two kids, the lady might as well have said ‘you’re white so you might as well forget it’.
Cab rides? I WISH they called a cab. They call a frickin AMBULANCE to drag them abound. In Atlanta the EMS system has a problem with people calling for ambulance to take them to Grady Memorial, then once they get there they leave AMA and go clubbing.
The other day I had to sit around in a hospital for a while waiting for someone. This gang-banger was there with his baby-mama and baby. He sure looked physically fit.
Some time later I saw him in a wheel chair saying he was all alone and couldn’t go home until they provided him transportation.
Everybody else gets a friend to go and sit around for hours to provide transportation. Not this guy. He apparently wanted he cab ride although he looked fit enough to run ten miles if the police were after him.