The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA, was passed in 1986 as a federal anti-dumping law. It mandates “patients who present to a hospital emergency department”… “must undergo an appropriate medical screening examination by a physician”… “to determine whether they have an emergency medical condition.”
We really need to start redistributing how we spend money on health care. Public option, lower executive pay. More non-emergency long term facilities for patients with psych issues or rehabilitation, and chronic illness care. Better pay and shorter shifts for doctors and nurses. Subsidies for medical tech companies to offset end-user price. More government-funded research into medical tech.
Health care should realistically be our biggest industry akin to a military with the social status of being a soldier and the compensation of being a software developer. We have the wealth and technology to help most people live healthy lives. We need the government to incentivize allocating it correctly.