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This has been a legal requirement since 1986. It’s one of the odd things about the debate over socialized medicine: the US has had socialized medicine for 30 ye
by mikeash 9y ago
This has been a legal requirement since 1986. It’s one of the odd things about the debate over socialized medicine: the US has had socialized medicine for 30 years now. The debate is merely over how it’s provided and who pays for it. But it’s never actually mentioned that this is the case.
- katastic 9y agoThanks for the date, that's helpful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_an... >It requires hospital Emergency Departments that accept payments from Medicare to provide an appropriate medical screening examination (MSE) to anyone seeking treatment for a medical condition, regardless of citizenship, legal status, or ability to pay.
- mikeash 9y agoYep, that’s the law in question. Republicans profess to be against socialized medicine, yet very few of them propose repealing EMTALA. It’s suspicious.
- FireBeyond 9y agoAll they need to do is make Medicare sufficiently unattractive that more and more hospitals opt out of accepting Medicare patients and they're no longer covered by EMTALA. Same end result, without the negative publicity.
- katastic 9y agoAnd they also say Veteran's Affairs healthcare is great... which is socialized.