who should pay for the rescue of rich folk who vacation in dangerous, out of the way places?

[Benjamin Frank]

You do realize there are insurance policies for things like this, right? Or you have government policies like the NPS policy to not generally bill people for rescues in national parks, and the cost of rescues is built into their user fees and government funding.

When it comes to the cost of government agencies that have statutory search and rescue responsibilities (e.g., the Coast Guard), people should not be sent bills for rescue efforts unless maybe they were conducting intentionally reckless activities like kayaking from California to Hawaii, which some idiot actually tried.

So, you're saying the Gilligan's Island episode where the guy went on a surfboard from the island to Hawaii wasn't true??

[Benjamin Frank]

1.The problem with making people pay the bill themselves is that discourages them from seeking help and encourages them to try to rescue themselves instead. This can lead to them getting into even more dangerous situations as well as waste valuable time.

2.Rich folks pay taxes as well and they deserve to receive the same basic services that everybody else receives. If search and rescue were more of a burden on the budget than it is, there would likely be mandatory insurance for these things in all cases.

So, for instance, before a person could go hiking, the park ranger would check to make sure that all hikers have proper insurance.

[Benjamin Frank]

I'm pretty sure I remember this correctly: there have been jurisdictions where people who were responsible for their getting lost (going to out of bound areas while hiking) where legislated to pay for their own rescue, and what's happened is that some of the people in that situation hid from rescuers in order to not pay.