The Reagan administration, I believe, imposed the unfunded mandate on emergency rooms to treat patients using EMTALA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Me

The Reagan administration, I believe, imposed the unfunded mandate on emergency rooms to treat patients using EMTALA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_an... This mandate makes sense from a moral point of view, especially for true emergency situations. However, the act didn't take care of the cost of care, which was placed on hospitals and ultimately passed on to other patients and the government. Obamacare attempted to address this issue. EMTALA also distorted US healthcare be redirecting poorer people to expensive emergency care rather than preventive or primary care, which might well serve many of their needs better. That's also something that Obamacare was designed to fix.