'General Hospital' actress wants Romney 'disqualified' for poking hole in Obamacare narrative

Sarah D. | 2:00 PM on September 24, 2012

The actress is shocked — shocked! — that Mitt Romney would have the temerity to claim that uninsured people can receive emergency room care. After all, that goes against the portion of the pro-Obamacare narrative that asserts that sick people without health insurance will be left to die in the streets. Disqualify him!

Well, Nancy, we hate to break it to you (actually, that’s a lie; we can’t wait to break it to you), but Romney is absolutely right. According to the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, individuals seeking E.R. treatment cannot be denied medical examinations, regardless of their insurance status:

Any patient who “comes to the emergency department” requesting “examination or treatment for a medical condition” must be provided with “an appropriate medical screening examination” to determine if he is suffering from an “emergency medical condition”. If he is, then the hospital is obligated to either provide him with treatment until he is stable or to transfer him to another hospital in conformance with the statute’s directives.

…

A pregnant woman who presents in active labor must, for all practical purposes, be admitted and treated until delivery is completed, unless a transfer under the statute is appropriate. The statute explicitly provides that this must include delivery of the placenta.

In essence, then, the statute:

imposes an affirmative obligation on the part of the hospital to provide a medical screening examination to determine whether an “emergency medical condition” exists;
imposes restrictions on transfers of persons who exhibit an “emergency medical condition” or are in active labor, which restrictions may or may not be limited to transfers made for economic reasons;
imposes an affirmative duty to institute treatment if an “emergency medical condition” does exist.