HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOMS KEEP CLOSING: A large part of the reason is that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires hospitals with emergency rooms to treat uninsured patients regardless of ability to pay (until they are “stabilized”). Hospitals without emergency rooms don’t have to.
(Alas, EMTALA was a Reagan Era innovation. And the number of emergency rooms has been decreasing ever since. The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.)