Why American ambulance rides are so expensive

In July 2023, a 25-year-old man named Jagdish Whitten was out for a run in San Francisco. As he crossed a busy street, a car hit him; he did, in his words, “a little flip” over the vehicle, landed in the road, and dragged himself to the curb. Those who had seen the accident called an ambulance for him. But Whitten waved them off and called a friend, who drove him to a nearby hospital instead: “I knew that ambulances were expensive,” he said, “and I didn’t think I was going to die.”Whitten was right on both counts. At the hospital, doctors found that he had a mild concussion, a broken toe, and a few bruises—nothing too serious. But because he’d suffered a traumatic injury, they were obligated to send him to San Francisco General, the city’s only designated trauma center. This time he didn’t have a choice. He was loaded into an ambulance for a six-mile transfer, evaluated without additional treatment, and sent home the same night.Over the weeks that followed, Whitten got bills from both…