BS...hospitals are required by law to treat every ER patient regardless of ability to pay. If it were otherwise hospitals would all be profitable and there would be no waiting in a room full of uninsured people with runny noses and a cough looking for primary care.
This is ridiculous.
I’ve been with an uninsured friend to more than a couple hospitals and ERs..
The ER staff has never, EVER been concerned with the payment part. If I heard it said once, I heard it a hundred times, “don’t worry about that now, we’ll get you better first”.
Not BS at all. The key term is "medically unstable." That, they have to treat. That doesn't cover much.
Otherwise, it's easy enough to find out. Go to a hospital ER, tell them you have some non-emergency ailment, serious enough but not an emergency situation; say you're having real bad ear pain with dizziness and nausea, or you haven't been able to swallow solids for a year and your heartburn is making you severely undernourished, or you've got such intense gall bladder pain you can't function anymore. Then tell them you have no insurance, no job, no medicare, no medicaid, no ability whatsoever to pay them. You don't own a home and there's no gold in your teeth. See how much medical attention the law requires them to give you. You get a free pass right out the door to the curb.
Like everyone else here, I don't think free medical care is free, or that anyone should be forced to pay for their fellow citizens' care. But the argument that it's already happening is false.