# National Eve. News: Help Me ID a Health Story **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 25, 2004, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-eve-news-help-me-id-a-health-story/231080 "2004-02-25T12:42:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2004, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-eve-news-help-me-id-a-health-story/231080/1 "2004-02-25T12:42:46Z")
Last night, I saw a story how a Texas public hospital (run via a medical school, IIRC) was treating patients based on the ability to pay. The example was a woman who had a heart attack, but no health insurance. While they did treat her as a heart attack emergency, they refused follow-up treatment until SHE PAID HER BILL. EVentually, she got Medicaid to help offset the cost. The story (CBS? NBC?) may have been a scare tactic boasting it may be the new trend in medicine. But, the story **FAILED** to address the current Federal laws to guard against such practices! In fact, a recent Federal law states if you feel you have a life-threatening OR limb-threatening emergency, the hospital has to take you. In fact, I will get the exact wording from a relative who works within the main Federal offices of Social Security…on such matters, specifically. Does anyone recall seeing this story last night on the national, evening news? - Jinx ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2004, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-eve-news-help-me-id-a-health-story/231080/2 "2004-02-25T14:02:51Z")
It must have been on NBC last night - here’s the story: [http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4363789/](http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4363789/)