The ironic twist to this story is that safeguards for indigent patients already existed; however, most were guidelines without the force of law that were being ignored by private hospitals and doctors. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals stated that “individuals shall be accorded impartial access to treatment or accommodations that are available or medically indicated, regardless of race, creed, sex, nationality, or sources of payment for care” (3). The American College of Emergency Physicians had similar language in its bylaws (4). The Hospital Survey and Construction Act of 1946 (commonly called the Hill-Burton Act) had established federal guidelines for emergency medical care at certain hospitals, and many state laws were also on the books mandating nondiscriminatory access to emergency care (1).
The combination of reports in the professional and lay press, the obvious impotence of the laws already on the books, and the increasing presence of the federal government in all things health-care related led to the enactment of EMTALA. It is interesting to note that shortly after EMTALA was passed the same physicians who authored the study on patient dumping to Cook County Hospital commented that “monitoring, enforcement and the effectiveness of this federal law will be crippled” by its vague definitions of emergency care and stabilization (1). Although they were correct concerning the law's ambiguities, they could not have been more wrong about the impact of the law over the next decade.