Study: Government Program a Strain on Emergency Rooms

"The government's Medicaid program for the poor may put more financial burden on overcrowded hospital emergency rooms than the nation's 47 million uninsured, according to a study published on Thursday....'What surprised us was that uninsured patients actually pay a higher proportion of their emergency department charges than Medicaid does,' said Renee Hsia, an emergency room doctor and researcher at UCSF who led the study."