Political Quotes

“Congress has created an anomaly, a catch-22 situation which occurs in one of the most traumatic areas of our society, the hospital emergency room. The anomaly is that under the Federal Emergency Medical Treatment Act, physicians in hospitals which participate in Medicare must provide "an appropriate medical screening examination to any patient who presents himself or herself in an emergency room without regard to insurance coverage or ability to pay. If the emergency condition exists, the patient must be stabilized before transfer or release." So, the hospital which provides Medicare services is required to receive any persons presenting themselves to the emergency room and to provide initial stabilization and screening, without regard to the persons' ability to pay. Second, health maintenance organizations, which, today, provide Medicare services for almost 1 out of 10 Medicare beneficiaries, are not required to reimburse the emergency room if it performs the services that we have statutorily required the emergency room and its professional staff to perform. Who is affected by this anomaly? Who is caught in the catch-22 which we have created?…”