Umm...Politics on the Beltway... If you’re one of those people who object to the federal government mandating everyone purchase health insurance, then you should be up in arms over the federal government forcing some free enterprise private business to give away its products and services for free. EMTALA is an acronym for a federal law signed in 1986 by President Reagan that puts a variety of obligations on hospitals that have emergency departments, most notably to screen for and stabilize the emergency medical condition(s) of all individuals that reach the campus of the hospital without regard to citizenship or if the individual has insurance or other means of payment for these services. EMTALA applies to participating hospitals. The statute defines participating hospitals as those that accept payment from the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) under the Medicare program. Because there are very few hospitals that do not accept Medicare, the law applies to nearly all hospitals. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 55% of U.S. emergency care now goes uncompensated. When medical bills go unpaid, health care providers must either shift the costs onto those who can pay or go uncompensated. In the first decade of EMTALA, such cost-shifting amounted to a hidden tax levied by providers. For example, it has been estimated that this cost shifting amounted to $455 per individual or $1,186 per family in California each year. However, because of the recent influence of managed care and other cost control initiatives by insurance companies, hospitals are less able to shift costs, and end up writing off more in uncompensated care. The amount of uncompensated care delivered by nonfederal community hospitals grew from $6.1 billion in 1983 to $40.7 billion in 2004, according to a 2004 report from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, but it is unclear what percentage of this was emergency care and therefore attributable to EMTALA. Financial pressures on hospitals in the 20 years since EMTALAs passage have caused them to consolidate and close facilities, contributing to emergency room overcrowding.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 00:46:24 +0000
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