Jessica Reyna
ORU-516 is a bill that allows people to get emergency medical treatment regardless of their citizenship status or health insurance coverage or lack thereof. This bill was presented by Representative Nowaski who is currently a Nursing major at Oral Roberts University. Once a patient enters an emergency department of Trauma center it is illegally for medical professionals to pressure the patient or those that accompanied the patient for citizenship status and healthcare information. However, the information could be volunteered, and this information is not required until the emergency medical treatment has been completed. The only instance that it is deemed necessary to require this information is in the case of a foreign disease or a suspected foreign disease.
Many people who have not yet attained citizenship are afraid to seek out medical treatment because of their status. The original intent of the author was to protect the patients from any biases that may (rarely) occur. This law is designed to give people some kind of piece of mind that when they go into emergency centers to be treated, they will receive the same type of medical treatment as those that are covered by health insurance or has citizenship status.
There is a similar law in place and the act is known as EMTALA. EMTALA is the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, and it prohibits the discrimination of people who have no insurance from being refused emergency medical treatment. Legally, they are required to give the best treatment possible, however this is not always the case. As of right now, medical staff has the ability to view this information, and there have been cases where people are not completely treated because of their status. This bill will give everyone a basic playing field when it comes to basic healthcare. An opinion that a majority of people share is that basic emergency healthcare should be given to all people.
If this piece of legislation is passed it will affect only public hospitals because they are government run institutions. It will not affect private run hospitals because they are funded through other means.