How hospitals are killing E.R. patients:

Keep in mind that divert status has nothing to do with being insured! Some of the reasons are: 1. Because emergency rooms can't refuse treatment, they lose money on the uninsured, and many hospitals are closing their emergency departments; 2. Patients who are uninsured or underinsured use emergency rooms for primary care and/or wait until their conditions get serious, thus ending in emergency.

Now a new article in the online magazine Slate adds one more nail in the coffin of the profit-motive in health care, which puts us all at risk. Notice that in "socialized-medicine" England, the government requires and enforces that 98% of patients be seen within 4 hours. Of course, since everyone has health insurance and a family practitioner, one of the reasons for crowding is eliminated.

Maybe we need to explain to congress that if they want an ER to be there when they need one, they need to pass HR 676.