DaasYochid,
“What it comes down to is that on several levels, accepting insurance is likely to have a negative affect on Hatzola’s effectiveness, as well as increase the likelihood of a chillul Hashem occurring.”
Why do you say so?
This has been done by many different Hatzolahs yet there has been no change on the side of patient care, this is only on the financial end.
Furthermore, at times Hatzolah would ‘privatize’ transports, this usually occurs when they cannot get members to respond to a call, now there will be an incentive for those that manage the organization to have sufficient coverage and cover all calls, otherwise it means a loss of revenue and more difficult to cover their operating budget.
again, the members will still be volunteers, the structure and character would not change. Only instead of completely relying on funds from the community, they will get much more by collecting insurance money that is already there, it only needs to be collected.
I am not dismissing the argument on the opposing side, I have no clue about the specifics and it may very much be that there are valid reasons against billing insurance for transports that they already do, I just have just not yet heard a valid argument.