The emergency care trope gets repeated frequently, but the truth of the matter is that hospitals over-allocate costs to the ER, and then overcharge for ER servi

The emergency care trope gets repeated frequently, but the truth of the matter is that hospitals over-allocate costs to the ER, and then overcharge for ER services, and then write off the inflated charges, all to game statutory reporting requirements. So what the public sees as loss-leading ER services pushing up costs for everyone is actually an accounting gimmick. The true costs lay elsewhere.