Any hospital in the United States that refused to admit a Medicaid or Medicaid patient in medical need (including non-emergency) would find its license suspended immediately.
Not entirely correct. Hospitals have to treat anyone with a medical emergency. After that, there are categories of hospitals. A hospital where I live recently had it’s designation changed to Critical Access Hospital, or Critical Care Hospital. Not sure which, but it is only required to treat Medicare and I think Medicaid patients for a certain period of time, then the patients are transferred to another category of hospital.
Here, after a certain number of days, the local hospital transfers some patients to a regional hospital. And it was generally believed the move was made to avoid having all the beds filled with older, Medicare patients.
Much of this is state regulated and is not the same nationwide, but doctors can chose what type patients to accept as regular patients, and hospitals have some flexibility after required emergency treatment and a certain period of further care.
“Any hospital in the United States that refused to admit a Medicaid or Medicaid patient in medical need (including non-emergency) would find its license suspended immediately. “
However, private docs are NOT required to accept them as far as I know. The jerks that wanted this should have been careful what they wished for.