This is a new one. Evidently, under the Obamacare legislation as it now stands, volunteer firefighters count as “employees” and will therefore have to be insured by the fire departments that “employ” them. And this isn’t just a minor problem that affects a handful of rural communities. No, 71 percent of fire houses in America are entirely volunteer, and another 16% are mostly volunteer.
Lou Barletta, a representative from Pennsylvania, got it right when he said about this situation, “If Obamacare is the law of the land, then so is the law of unintended consequences.”
