and who pays the ER? they work for free?
You do, via your taxes....assuming you pay any. It gets redistributed by the federal government, of course. That is why the federal government leftists came up with Obamacare. They wanted working Americans to all ‘share that cost’ more via the mandate. Government wanted to keep more of that taxpayer money to spend on more of their leftist social schemes.
So now, hard-working, ever-struggling Americans have to fork over more money to the insurance companies for health coverage that they, personally, may not need or want so that the strain is taken off of government to reimburse ERs that are treating the uninsured (mostly illegals).
You don’t know this? And you have the nerve to call someone ‘else’ myopic? Hilarious.
“Administrators at the hospital attribute the trend to the sluggish economy and say a pool of federal funds intended to pay for the uninsured is running out.”
“The federal law that requires hospitals to take all patients into emergency rooms is EMTALA, or the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act passed in 1986. It requires hospitals that receive federal funds (just about all of them, thanks to Medicare) to provide treatment to anyone needing emergency care, regardless of their ability to pay.”
There are new ways of doing basic diagnostics for most common ills that can be done by Skype, phone, email, etc. It would be so much cheaper for governments (preferably local and state) to set up small clearance offices in poorer or spread out rural areas where people could go for a basic consultation and preliminary diagnosis. Decisions could then be made as to whether to go to an ER, to wait and see if the problem clears up, recommend an over the counter item like aspirin with instructions, or do minor treatment like cleaning and bandaging a small cut or abrasion.