‘Selfish or stupid.’ Rejecting COVID vaccine puts healthcare workers in real danger.

“If you can get the vaccine, and decide not to, then you’ve made your choice: Don’t ask for sympathy or money when you get sick”. Conservative columnist Bret Stephens offered that comment in the NY Times on July 19 as an alternative when referring to President Biden’s ill-received comment about people “killing America” by not getting the vaccine.

Sounds great, and I agree to a point. But unfortunately, thanks to a federal regulation with the acronym EMTALA, which stands for Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, the comment, like our president’s, is empty. The law was passed in 1986 with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by President Reagan. It basically states if the hospital receives payments from Medicare, a person had a right to be seen, or from the other point of view, a doctor is forced to see and take care of a patient, whether or not they could pay the bills. Physicians learned to call EMTALA the Anti-Patient Dumping Act, as they could no longer refuse to see uninsured patients, or more likely “dump them” on a bigger hospital. Private hospitals got around the law by closing their emergency rooms.

Now, with the environment of healthcare completely different, I would like to rename EMTALA the People’s Inherent right to Selfishness and Stupidity Act. As we are seeing in this country, when it comes to Covid, unvaccinated Americans are either for the most part selfish or stupid. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard a 20-year-old kid tell me if they get sick, there is little chance of them becoming seriously ill. You can tell them they might spread the virus to their grandparent, or an individual who has a weakened immune system. It does not register. Take the N.C. State baseball team. Many of the kids opted to not get vaccinated. They didn’t die, but an entire season of hard work was wasted when they had to forfeit their semi-final game after four players tested positive. I wonder if the unvaccinated kids felt any remorse towards the teammates who did the right thing. I wonder how the 20-year-old kid will feel if he ends up in an ER forcing healthcare providers to care for him and the taxpayers to pay.

I have heard countless patients say they are waiting to see if the vaccine is safe. You can give these people as much as data as they ask for, it does not register. Congressional leaders are on TV asking their constituents to look at the data and pleading. But why would that do any good? Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you have seen the data. These people are just stupid enough to listen to the “fake news” put out on every social media platform, or selfish enough to not care if they get sick and force healthcare providers to help them.

This behavior is different than not wearing a seatbelt. That individual is taking their own life at risk. When they get thrown out of a car, yes society pays for it (car insurance rates are higher for everyone to offset the increased risks imposed by those who don’t wear seatbelts), but no, a physician is not put in danger taking care of that individual. But a Covid-19 patient who has opted to not get vaccinated, unlike the individual not wearing a seatbelt, carries a deadly weapon into the ER. And unless physicians and healthcare providers were to collectively ignore EMTALA and say “no, I won’t take care of you”, stupidity and selfishness will continue to win.

David Shafran is a part-time traveling urologist based in Richmond.

This story was originally published July 21, 2021 at 10:42 AM.