A Reminder: The Media Doesn't Just Report News - They Determine What Is News (and When)

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while!  Life has been crazy.  I started this blog to give my friends and colleagues a little glimpse into my experience as IAFC President. So I guess I've got some catching up to do.

After a break over the Christmas/New Year holidays, my activity and travel picked up again in January.  While I live in the San Diego area and normally don't have to put up with much in the way of winter, this winter has been a tough one to travel through.  In late January, I needed to go to Orlando for a meeting - through Atlanta of course - on the day that they had the complete meltdown due to winter weather.

I was supposed to leave San Diego at 6:45 AM, but that flight got cancelled, so I was rebooked on a later flight.  Finally arrived in Atlanta at about 6:30 PM in the midst of the storm.  The airport was a ghost town....most flights cancelled, except for my Orlando flight.  The departure time kept slipping until we finally got on the plane about midnight.  Then the tug couldn't push the plane off the gate.....tires kept spinning in the snow.  Finally, they resorted to brute strength and lined up two tugs nose to tail and pushed hard and that got the plane moving.  I'll confess I had visions of the nose gear snapping off!  We then got in line for deice.  Because the roads were gridlocked, airport employees couldn't get to work, so they had only 2 deice trucks working.  We finally got deiced at 2:30 AM and arrived in Orlando about 5 AM.  I got to the hotel at about 6 AM and my meeting was scheduled to start at 8 AM.  And people think that all of the travel I do is fun!

While in Orlando, the news broke about the situation in Washington, DC about the man who collapsed across the street from a fire station and no one from the fire department would come out to help.  The media was clamoring for the IAFC to make some sort of statement.  We normally try to stay out of this stuff, because we know that there is always another side of the story, but DC hasn't exactly been giving the fire service a good name lately, so we agreed to have me to do an interview for the Today show.  So at 7 PM on a Thursday night, I'm off to a local independent studio to tape an interview for Today the next morning.  Everything is a rush!  The interview went pretty well.  I resisted the urge to bash DC Fire and EMS because we didn't have the whole story, but my message was that this isn't typical of the fire service anywhere in the world....that you CAN go to fire stations and get help.....that's what we're there for.  I could sense the producer who was doing the interview was getting a bit frustrated that I wasn't following their angle, but we finished up anyway.  The next morning, everyone tuned in to Today and.....no story!  Turns out it got bumped by the new Amanda Knox verdict.  It finally ran over the weekend with my segment reduced to about a 15 second sound bite.  I was reminded that when I get asked to do these things, they have often already written the story and they're not necessarily looking for another opinion!

Sometimes Persistence (and having friends in the right places) Pays Off!

As I've advanced in my career, one of the things I've learned is that the distance or time between taking action and seeing results seems to get longer and longer.  When I was a young firefighter, you saw fire, you put water on the fire, it goes out.  Instant gratification!  When I was a young paramedic, you would see a sick patient, pull out your paramedic bag of tricks, and the patient would get better (or worse).  Again, instant gratification.  But now the results often come a long, long time after the effort is expended and I've learned to be patient.

Readers of this blog know that one of the issues we've been facing this year is a wrinkle in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that would result in many volunteer fire departments across the country suddenly being responsible for providing healthcare insurance to their volunteer members.  This would cause a significant negative impact on emergency services in many communities.  The IRS could have fixed the issue with a simple clarification, but for more than a year they have failed to take action or even respond to requests for information on the issue.  The IAFC and other national fire service organizations have been working on this for nearly a year without apparent effect.

As we entered the Christmas holidays, Congressman Barletta (PA) - I met him and discussed this issue informally with him at the IBHS ember storm demonstration last Fall that I wrote about in an earlier blog - introduced a bill that would take the matter out of the IRS' hands and impose a legislative mandate that volunteers be exempt.  His bill rapidly gained widespread bipartisan support and Senator Warner (VA) introduced a companion bill in the Senate - again with widespread bipartisan support.  Dozens of members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors and the noise level on the issue on Capitol Hill has been escalating rapidly.  As you know, we have been getting increasing media attention, too (see my last blog about my appearance on Fox and Friends on the issue).

I couldn't be happier to find out today that our efforts have paid off.  Today, in an IRS blog on tax policy issues, the IRS has announced that they will exempt volunteer fire and EMS personnel from the requirements of the law.  You can read their full blog here:  http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Treasury-Ensures-Fair-Treatment-for-Volunteer-Firefighters-and-Emergency-Responders-under-the-Affordable-Care-Act-Under-ACA.aspx.  Yes, I see that there still room for trouble in some of the language they have used, but in general, it looks like the IRS has actually given in and agreed with our requested interpretation and action on this issue.

I'm glad that everyone's efforts on this important issue have finally paid off.  It does wonders for morale when we see that someone really IS listening and that eventually, common sense does win out!