Public Services in the East Asian Federation
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Public services in the East Asian Federation are a highly-competitive national industry with participation from nearly all medium and large sized corporations in the Federation. Public services are not provided by the government and funded by taxation as in other comparable developed countries, but are entirely provided by corporations and are purchased as-needed by citizens in the form of public service options (PSOs). The price of service options paid by citizens is divided between service-operating corporations in the prefecture of purchase, with 50% of revenue going to the representative corporation, and the remaining divided between the other service operators. Service options are renewed monthly, and can be paid for automatically from citizens' pay or citizens can be billed month to month.
The representative corporation of a prefecture assigns service nodes, for example, a school, or fire station, to individual residences in the prefecture. By federal law, representative corporations are mandated to assign a node within 50 kilometers of a residence. Since several service nodes operated by competing corporations may be located in closer proximity to their households, citizens have the freedom to subscribe to service provided by a competing corporation in addition to the relevant service option.
General Utility PSO
Although no public service options are mandatory to live in the East Asian Federation, the General Utility PSO, which pays for national defense, the federal government, and the National General Fund, is required for nearly all federal government services, such as the issuing of passports, being a civil service employee, or the issuing of replacement FedPasses, and as such is psuedo-mandatory. The price of the General Utility PSO ranges from 8,500¥ (~$178 USD) in Lienchiang Prefecture to 25,000¥ ($525 USD) in Tokyo Prefecture based on population density, prefectural level of development, and quality of service factor as determined by the State Office for Development. The General Utility PSO has a 97% rate of subscription.
Critical Services PSO
The Critical Services PSO is the most subscribed option outside of the General Utility PSO. Subscribed to by 94% of the populace, the Critical Services option consists of Fire, Police, and Emergency Medical services. Subscription to the Critical Services option is not mandatory for ambulance service, however, priority will be placed on subscribers over non-subscribers by the dispatch system, and non-subscribers will be charged an ambulance fee equal to 25% of the Critical Services option's price. For an additional 1000¥, smoke detectors and burglar alarms connected to the Integrated Defense Network can be actively monitored by an emergency services center, and the relevant emergency service will be immediately dispatched when an emergency is detected.
Education PSO
Because of the lack of taxation in the East Asian Federation, public schools are operated by prefectural and local government, but financed by a combination of corporate operating fees and the Education service options subscribed to by citizens, somewhat the opposite of a charter school system. As such, the relative cost of public education is higher in the Federation than in comparable countries. The typical up-front cost for a Kindergarten through Secondary education is on average 357,142¥ annually. In the larger cities, where the costs of education are typically much higher because of student density, a basic education option can cost as much as 500,000¥ annually, which totals to 6,500,000¥ throughout a full thirteen year pre-tertiary education.
In addition to the basic education option, for additional fees, students' curriculum can be focused on a variety of subjects, such as engineering, mathematics, or college preparation, with more choices becoming available in secondary education. To attend a private school, a separate private education service fee is required, which is 10,000¥ annually in addition to private school tuition.