Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act patient rights protection

¶ … rights EMTALA grants, to whom, when, and in what setting.

EMTALA is short for the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. It was part of the larger Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986, which is commonly referred to as COBRA. The EMTALA legislation governs how and when a patient may be refused treatment and/or when they may be transferred from one hospital to another while in an unstable condition. The "avowed purpose" of EMTALA prevents "hospitals from rejecting patients, refusing to treat them, or transferring them to 'charity hospitals' or 'county hospitals' because they are unable to pay or are covered under the Medicare or Medicaid programs" (EMTALA, 2015). Basically, it protects patients that are near-death or are otherwise in medical distress from being sent off to another hospital due to concerns about payment for services rendered. In other words, it prevents a hospital from treating patients based on their ability to pay or lack thereof, at least as it pertains to life-threatening situations.

2. What are you opinions regarding economic caps on medical malpractice lawsuits?

As with most things, there is no solution that is "clean" and "pure," but the reasoning behind the economic caps is fairly easy to see. Indeed, if there is no cap placed on the damages that can be paid in light of a medical malpractice lawsuit, then this would mean that the doctors would have to pay sky-high rates for malpractice insurance or they would have to face the full liability cost on their own. At the same time, it would seem that the removal of the caps has led to lawyers deciding that there is not enough cash in it for them to take on medical malpractice cases if the punitive and other damages (beyond actual injury) are capped or eliminated. The author of this response would say that there needs to be caps because juries sometimes do very stupid things and many (most?

) malpractice cases are due to simple mistakes rather than intent or gross negligence.

3. Write a brief description of the Belmont Report.

As stated clearly on the associated website, the Belmont Report is something issued by the Department of Health and Human Services. The non-catchy title of the report is the "Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research." Issued in April of 1979, it was a product of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (HHS, 1979)

1. Why is using looks only, at times a disadvantage?

Because, as they say, looks can be deceiving. For example, there is the concept in science of analogous and homologous creatures. Even if a creature is a dead ringer for another one, that does NOT mean that they are related or from the same basic ancestry. A brother and sister (of any mammal, to be clear…including humans) would be homologous because they share a common ancestor or ancestors. In other words, they share one (if not both) parents. Thus, they are genetically similar specifically because of this. However, if there are two people that are strikingly similar in appearance but are NOT linked by a common ancestor, then the reason they look alike is because of environmental coincidences rather than genetics. The point to be made and learned is that similar appearances may mean something…but they may not (Berkeley, 2015).

2. Natural forces lead to evolution. Do you think evolution still goes on, and what extent do you think this is happening?

Of course it is. There is always natural selection. There is always species that emerge due to mutation and cross-breeding. There are always traits that fade out while new ones emerge. It happens very slowly relative to what human naturally perceived. Indeed, we live sixty to eighty years in optimal circumstances and that is a blink of the eye when it comes to the millions and billions of years during which the universe and/or this planet has existed. The population and industrialization of the world has obviously had a demonstrative effect on the evolution and ecology paradigm. However, it certainly has not stopped occurring.