How treating migrants may be crippling hospital care

“The federal law that put the hospitals on the hook for the medical bills of illegals goes by the acronym EMTALA–Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. It says that anybody who shows up in an ER must get screened, treated and stabilized, regardless of citizenship or ability to pay.

But since its passage in 1985, the definition of emergency has evolved to include just about anything, and because Congress didn’t fund the requirement, hospitals have had to eat the costs as word has spread that the federal goodie wagon is parked at the ER door.

In cities with huge illegal populations, such as Los Angeles, the effects have been disastrous. In its spring 2005 issue, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reported that between 1993 and 2003, 60 California hospitals closed because, for several reasons including EMTALA, half of their services became unpaid.”