ALS in PA v NJ

Now that I'm in college (oh boy), I'm now running with the campus Rescue Squad. So, now BigShow is an EMT in two states. Running with this squad in PA has exposed me to another side of ALS. In New Jersey, ALS by law is hospital based. Medics must work in pairs. For the most part they ride around in SUV's and meet the BLS line of sight on the way to the hospital. We are EXTREAMLY limited by this whole "hospital based" thing. My one squad is served by a total of three ALS trucks, for a population of 300,000, spanning from light urban areas to rural areas. My other county is currently served by 3 ALS trucks that serve our county alone, plus one that serves the northern half of ours, and the southern half of another. Thats four ALS units for a population total of 150,000 people, in a primarily rural area. Compare this to my current area, where ALS is run by local fire and EMS companies. We have a single provider ALS chase unit serving a suburban population of 30,000, with the nearest "second due" just 10 mins away. It seems like back home, waiting is the name of the game. We get to do ALOT of BLS skills in the back of the truck. However, sometimes, there is volume, and the response from communications is "No ALS available". It sucks to hear that, really sucks. Especially when you know that you have a 45 minute transport a head of you... The biggest obstacle to ALS in NJ is the hospital rule. I can see why they have it, the thought being if they are based out of a hospital (doesn't necessarily mean they are sitting at a hospital), they are better trained and have better oversight than if they were simply municaple based. However, I think this is counter productive. MICU ends up being that garage off the back of the hospital that no one really knows or cares about. They are paid horribly, with HUGE salary gaps between the Podunk hospitals and the big city ones, further more, the number and locations of the trucks are severely limited by the private funds the hospitals obtain. Not to mention, what would the hospital spend its money on? The flashy new CT/MRI/Surgery/Cold remedy machine or replace the aging Lifepak and Medic trucks? Compare this to ALS in my area of PA. There are more medics than you could shake a stick at. Each town has its own ALS ambulance or chaser veh. They all have decent equipment, flashy trucks, and perhaps best of all, they are all nice, and respect the opinion of the BLS provider. (SHOCKING I KNOW!) Compare this to NJ, where it seems that BLS is ALWAYS wrong, does ALL the lifting, better drive PERFECTLY, better be perfect at their skills, better have all the info, PMHx, SAMPLE, etc, and have the pt loaded, with their arm sitting out ready to go. Oh, and don't even dare touching ANY of their equipment. ALS in PA seems to think that we are all a team (WTF?), and that BLS is more than just a taxi service, as a group of professionals who can actually assist them! My question is simply this.. Why can't NJ have this? Why must we be limited by legislation that was written in the 1980's when paramedic was a new term in NJ? (unfortunately, we seemed to be behind the ball on ALS. My area didn't have ALS until 1985...a good 15 years after paramedic programs started popping up across the country, and even then it was a whole county away) The only solution the State DOH seems to have is allowing us to give Epi-Pens, and a pilot program in my county for LMAs. Instead of giving the BLS more skills, how about you give us more resources?