Nathan Deal: Tighten Access To Hospital Emergency Rooms

Gov. Nathan Deal has often called on Congress to reconsider the Affordable Care Act. But on Monday evening, he pushed his former Washington colleagues to revisit a separate health care law that fewer politicians openly critique.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act is a 1986 law that requires hospitals to provide emergency health care treatment to anyone who needs it, regardless of citizenship or their ability to pay. It’s provided life-saving care to countless people, but it’s also strained hospital resources and turned emergency rooms into the first stop, instead of a last resort, for some.

“If they really want to get serious about lowering the cost of health care in this country, they would revisit another federal statute that has been there for a long time,” Deal told a crowd of dozens at a University of Georgia political science alumni gathering. “It came as a result of bad facts, and we have a saying that bad facts make bad law.”