Exactly. A combo of this chud good-ol-boy bullshit, yearly budget graft and the unfortunate fact most firefighters (especially chiefs) dont actually want anything to do with a medical calls. They wanna fight fires, not scoop people out of poop, or deal with junkies, or split up crews to have a rider do CPR. But you gotta justify your budget from needing to purchase 5 million dollar fire engines every few years & then burn the engine-hours out idling on the highway blocking traffic for fender benders. Turns out that’s not the tool for the job and a really asinine use of your hanger queens, but every MBA in city hall would have a fuckin fit if you had them sitting. EMS operations always and inevitably get cannibalized and privatized, despite the fact theres not that many fires anymore actually. We’ve gotten pretty damn good at fire prevention & supression. But you need this huge apparatus to fight fires when they do come out, and god forbid you have a fire crew just chilling around and waiting for a fire. They gotta moonlight EMS to keep up goodwill and have a disposable budget they can raid for good-ole boy bullshit & “fire prevention” jet-skis instead of just breaking it off into its own distinct service.

I’m rambling. TLDR; Fire & PD protects property primarily. EMS only protects human life, and human life only has value as an extractive industry in America. Budgets are assigned accordingly.