It's also an unfunded mandate. The government declared that all patients must be seen, but did not provide a mechanism to pay physicians, nurses, and hospitals

It's also an unfunded mandate. The government declared that all patients must be seen, but did not provide a mechanism to pay physicians, nurses, and hospitals for their services to care for those patients. They also did not shield the clinicians from liability. Hell, in order to perform a "medical screening exam" that EMTALA mandates, you have to do everything required to determine there is no true emergency. If you determine there is no emergency and discharge the patient (with no compensation), then the patient has something happen in the parking lot, you are 100% liable. As a result, people get these frighteningly expensive workups in the ED out of fear for litigation. People should get turned away if they don't have an emergency, but the fact is, no one turns anyone away, because there is no incentive to. Now you can trace a direct link between passage of EMTALA to the over utilization of the Emergency Department.