[steve86]

It's been illegal to turn away a patient based on their ability to pay for decades already.

This means the hospital has only to stabilize the patient (so the expectation is that the patient will not die within 24 hours) and then discharge them. If they do not need life-sustaining stabilization in the first place they can be evaluated and then discharged immediately. This happens every single day in every single hospital.

[steve86]

Some FReeper got all excited about my definition of "stabilize". Well, in practice my definition is the operational definition. Here is the formal definition:

“To stabilize” is defined as: to provide such medical treatment of the condition as may be necessary to assure, within reasonable medical probability, that no material deterioration of the condition is likely to result from or occur during the transfer of the individual from a facility, or, with respect to [a pregnant woman having contractions], to deliver (including the placenta) [3].