Rockefeller Looking to Grant Open Source (Linux Journal)

It's sort-of illegal to refuse to stabilise patients. What happens on the axis between "minimum work to stabilise in the expectation that the patient will die shortly afterwards, preferably at home" and "actually fix the patient's problem" depends on the hospital's policies, whether an ER doctor likes your face, and how expensive it will be to fix your problem.

Don't compare the clinical outcomes between "uninsured" and "insured" patients arriving at an ER if you've cherished the idea that an ER law protects those in need -- you won't like what you find.

The ER is a fraction of the problem anyway. Suppose you're like me, all you have wrong with you is enlarged lymph glands. That's no emergency. No ER for me. Fortunately I live in a country which grasped the benefit of providing universal healthcare, so they diagnosed and treated my cancer.

The (current) US system says I should have stayed at home until the cancer spread and my symptoms became an emergency. This is "cost effective" so long as you don't consider unnecessary deaths as a cost.

IT contractors needn't worry though, despite healthcare being largely government controlled in my country, there are still plenty of expensive IT projects which can fail or go spectacularly over budget and - unlike a private healthcare provider - the government is unlikely to sue you since the court case would be embarrassing.