Officials say only 21 counties in Oklahoma have paramedic level service and that more than 40 ambulance services have been lost over the past few years.
”The EMS system is on the verge of collapse,” says Lawton EMT Rodney Johnson.
Johnson is hoping with a little help from the legislature and the public, it won’t happen.
“This is not the answer to the EMS crisis,” says Johnson. “This is part of the answer. For some communities this is going to be able to save their ambulance service.”
House Joint Resolution 1014 is just the first step. It would put a constitutional amendment before the people to decide whether to eliminate a maximum funding cap for EMS, but many in the legislature believe this is not the right step to take.
“I think it's a dangerous path that we go down when you eliminate the cap,” says Rep. Richard Morrissette, D-Oklahoma City, who voted against the bill. “That means property taxes … there will be a significant tax increase for the local communities.”
Morrissette believes the responsibility should fall on the legislature to fund the services and not the individual counties, but one lawmaker behind the amendment disagrees.
“I still believe in the democratic process and allowing people to choose, so I think it's a good bill to allow the vote of the people to decide themselves rather than have it forced upon them,” says the author of HJR 1014 Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove.
Morrissette says it’s typical Republican tax policy by having the people increase their own taxes.
“My friends on the other side of the aisle that are running the House of Representatives are always talking about less and less taxes, yet they speak with forked tongue,” says Morrissette. “They go one end with less taxes and yet come around the back door and increase fees and assessments and all that which are essentially tax increases. What they're not doing through the front door they're trying to do through the back door.”
“I think every community wants it, it's just how they want to pay for it,” says Cox.
Johnson cares less about how it gets done and more about getting the funds to do his job.
The bill has already passed out of the House floor and Senate committee. Its next stop is the Senate floor.
