The America First Movement will reform the Emergency Medical Treatment Labor Act.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act or EMTALA is a federal law that requires medical personnel to stabilize and treat people who are going to an emergency department, regardless of their ability to pay up or their insurance status.
This clause was developed during a time when many doctors and establishments would refuse to treat patients out of their inability to pay up or insufficient insurance or the expectation of high costs for the medical establishment.
This clause in the EMTALA fails to properly define the status of individuals who need to be stabilized which results in doctors and medical establishments being forced out of the business as a result of heinous fees.
These heinous fees have also caused medical personnel and establishments to send patients to the emergency room, regardless of the injury or circumstance, be it a paper cut or a pregnancy.
This issue is worsened in consideration of the fact that the EMTALA adds several unnecessary liabilities which read as follows, “Physicians—including on-call physicians—who violate EMTALA may be subject to a $50,000 civil penalty. Hospitals that violate EMTALA are subject to civil penalties of $25,000 to $50,000 per violation, lawsuits for damages, and/or exclusion from Medicare” (Kim Stanger in Holland & Hart article “Avoiding EMTALA Penalties”.
The punishments covered in the EMTALA regarding the status of doctors and medical establishments should be removed as these punishments are unnecessary with the exception of the complaint fees that will be reduced to 2 thousand dollars with its scope and quantity being massively reduced.
In wake of this unreasonability, The America First Movement will remove all of these punishments with the exception of the complaint fees with the price of this fee being reduced to 2000 dollars and the scope of these complaints being massively reduced. The America First Movement should support this policy, as it supports the health and wellbeing of American families and medical establishments.