No Entitlement, and One Statute That Does Not Ask Who You Are
The United States gives residents no general right to health care, and this corpus holds no federal statute that confers one. What it does hold is the emergency statute, and the words that matter in it are parenthetical: a hospital with an emergency department must provide an appropriate medical screening examination to any individual - "whether or not eligible for benefits under this subchapter" - who comes to the department and asks for examination or treatment, and must stabilise an emergency condition it finds. The duty attaches to the hospital and to the fact of arrival. Nothing in it asks about nationality, immigration status, insurance or ability to pay.
At a glance
- A general right to health care
- None in federal law
Nothing in 42 U.S.C. 1395dd, quoted below, or in any federal statute read here confers one; what that section creates is a duty on hospitals.
- Emergency screening
- Owed to any individual who comes and asks
42 U.S.C. 1395dd(a), which says "whether or not eligible for benefits under this subchapter".
- Stabilising treatment
- Owed where an emergency condition is found
- Immigration status
- Not mentioned in the section
- Ability to pay
- Not a condition of the duty - it is a condition of what happens afterwards
Requirements
- Arrival at a hospital emergency department and a request for examination or treatment
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«(a) Medical screening requirement In the case of a hospital that has a hospital emergency department, if any individual (whether or not eligible for benefits under this subchapter) comes to the emergency department and a request is made on the individual's behalf for examination or treatment for a medical condition, the hospital must provide for an appropriate medical screening examination within the capability of the hospital's emergency department, including ancillary services routinely available to the emergency department, to determine whether or not an emergency medical condition (within the meaning of subsection (e)(1)) exists. (b) Necessary stabilizing treatment for emergency medical conditions and labor (1) In general If any individual (whether or not eligible for benefits under this subchapter) comes to a hospital and the hospital determines that the individual has an emergency»The screening duty and the opening of the stabilising duty. The parenthesis is the whole of what this statute gives a person without status: it attaches to arrival, not to eligibility.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government Publishing Office's authenticated repository. The United States Code is published here edition by edition, one HTML file per section, at an address that names the edition year - and a link service resolves a title and section number to the current edition's file.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: An edition is a snapshot: the 2024 edition states the law as of a date in 2024 and says nothing about amendments made since. The Code is itself a compilation of acts, and for titles not enacted into positive law the Statutes at Large govern where the two differ. Nothing here carries the regulations, which are in the Code of Federal Regulations, or the annual notices that fill in the numbers these sections leave open.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
This is a duty on hospitals, not an entitlement to care, and it ends where the emergency does. A bill follows, and nothing in the section prevents it.
Public insurance programmes and the subsidised marketplace have their own eligibility rules turning on lawful presence, and none of them is read here.
- consolidates42 U.S.C. 1395dd, emergency examination and treatment
GovInfo, U.S. Government Publishing Office · consolidated to 2024
About this source
The Government Publishing Office's authenticated repository. The United States Code is published here edition by edition, one HTML file per section, at an address that names the edition year - and a link service resolves a title and section number to the current edition's file.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: An edition is a snapshot: the 2024 edition states the law as of a date in 2024 and says nothing about amendments made since. The Code is itself a compilation of acts, and for titles not enacted into positive law the Statutes at Large govern where the two differ. Nothing here carries the regulations, which are in the Code of Federal Regulations, or the annual notices that fill in the numbers these sections leave open.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source