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Many ambulance companies are now charging higher fees for obese patients due to needing more time, more crew members and sometimes more expensive equipment to transport them. 

Do you think this is fair?  Is it weight discrimination?

Hmmm thats a tough one.    I think if they have to send extra crews, and it literally does cost more then they should be charged extra.   Just like a hospital visit isnt the same for everyone, the cost is billed by what procedures are needed.   There isnt a flat fee for an er visit and there isnt a flat fee for an ambulance.   My husband was in an ambulance about 15 years ago. He has MS and he passed out with what we thought was the flu.  His body temperature dropped and he was unconscious.   When I got the bill it was itemized.  They used a heated blanket and oxygen among other things.   My insurance paid it all but I had to submit the bill back to them and explain why the ambulance was necessary.  I just had the copay.  Now, if the company can do a bill that charges for two crews, etc and lists the charges, then I say yes.  I dont think they should just charge an extra flat fee as a fat tax though.

Somewhere in the 60's when the business folks decided that they could make money $$$ off of health care.  They justified it saying that those of us who worked in healthcare wanted to be paid more and so they had to charge more.  Course as a nurse back then I was making $2.26/hr and starving to death while I worked rotating shifts.  When I challenged this I was told my income was only secondary to my husbands income so I shouldn't worry about it. 

Now everthing is run by the business folks and the patients and staff have more or less been forgotten.  Just my two cents.

My sister in law is a nurse she makes $28 an hour first year out of school.    I am sure doctors make a fortune which they in turn probably have to pay out in insurance.  I live in michigan, malpractice insurance premiums are driving doctors out of certain fields.     I think the medical field should make a profit, if it were mostly non profit I doubt we would have enough doctors or hospitals or clinics to serve the population.  Also we wouldnt have the advances, because investors are the ones funding the research, and companies are not going to spend millions of dollars if there is no financial pay out for them.  It would be great for it to be cheap or free, but thats not reality.   I was born in the late 60's so I dont know what medical care was like before.  

for this issue though, if it costs more to do something, the charge should be more.    a vasectomy costs less than a tubal because its a different procedure, is it discriminatory to charge a woman more that a man to be sterilized?  If it truly takes two crews to take an obese person to the hospital, they or their insurance should have to pay for the difference. Its not fair for the ambulance company to eat the cost or to expect the ambulance attendants to work for free or half price.  The only other choice is to charge the new higher rate to everyone, and that seems more unfair. they arent charging a tax as a penalty to the over weight people, just charging a fee for the difference in service they require.  Just as different cars get charged differently for their parts, and medical procedures are different prices, and the groceries we buy are different priced depending on what we buy.