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It would be a sorry day if Montgomery County resorted to chasing ambulances for revenue. Yet ambulance fee proponents are lobbying hard to resuscitate the ambulance fee bill that the County Council's Public Safety Committee tabled in October.

Fee proponents are dangerously wrong in claiming that people won't hesitate to call for an ambulance if the proposed fees of $300 to $800 are approved.

Consider the case of Kevin McKenzie of Philadelphia, where there is a well-known ambulance fee of $350. As reported by Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Michael Vitez in an Oct. 9 story, McKenzie was walking with a friend when his heartbeat rapidly accelerated. His friend urged him to call an ambulance but McKenzie told him, "I don't have health insurance. I can't afford an ambulance or hospital or anything like that." Instead of calling 911, they waited for a few minutes to see if McKenzie's heartbeat would slow down. It didn't, and his friend insisted they call. When the ambulance arrived and the medics took McKenzie's pulse, it was 190 beats a minute. In the ambulance, McKenzie's heart rate reached 250 beats a minute before being brought under control.

As McKenzie's story demonstrates, knowledge of an ambulance fee affects how some people act in a medical emergency. A first-hand account of how the fees in Washington, D.C., deterred an elderly man in diabetic distress from using an ambulance has been provided to the council by James P. Seavey, the Fire Rescue Chief of the Cabin John Park Volunteer Fire Department.

The thousands of uninsured people who would be personally liable for ambulance fees under the executive branch's proposal would include a parent, sibling or friend who slips and breaks a hip while visiting from out of town, co-workers from other counties who are stricken at their Montgomery workplaces, and a family injured by a red-light runner while driving through the county.

Proponents say insurance companies would absorb the multi-million dollar cost for "covered" ambulance service, without increasing health insurance premiums. Who are they kidding?

County residents benefit greatly from the very strong volunteer component of our Fire and Rescue Service. Between 2006 and 2007, volunteers provided the equivalent of more than 500 work years of service, saving taxpayers millions of dollars. Many volunteer personnel strongly object to the idea of the county charging for emergency medical services that they give freely to the community. At a time when most other fire and rescue services are seeing a decline in volunteer participation, our county is bucking the trend. It is crucial that the county not adopt policies — including an ambulance fee — that could undermine the long-term viability of our volunteer departments.

The Montgomery County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association, which represents the county's 19 volunteer fire departments, has announced that it would gather the requisite signatures to trigger a referendum on any law establishing ambulance fees. It is in no one's interest that this issue lingers for two more years. Volunteers want to spend their time responding to 911 calls not petitioning at shopping centers, leafleting neighborhoods and campaigning at the polls.

In my 10 years on the council, no issue has generated comparable public opposition. The county's Fire and Rescue Commission, the towns of Kensington, Chevy Chase and Somerset, the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chamber of Commerce, the Montgomery County Civic Federation, the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board, the Western Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Board and the Leisure World Democratic Club oppose the ambulance fee bill. Of the more than 1,300 people who have called the council about ambulance fees, 95 percent have urged us to reject them.

Emergency response services are a public good paid for through taxes. Like the previous County Council, this council should nix the fundamentally bad idea of ambulance fees.

Philip M. Andrews, a Democrat from Gaithersburg, represents District 3 on the County Council. He also is chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee.