One point that needs to be made is all these non-emergent patients are not the focus of the article. They are addressing "Boarding Patients" ie. patients who were in fact sick enough to require admission to the hospital. Earache and drug seekers are by and large NOT boarding. They are treated and discharged albeit 20 hours later. A major problem simply is lack of in-patient beds. Our population is aging as the baby boomer's reach retirement age and begin to suffer all those serious problems associated with advancing age. We are not building new hospitals or increasing available beds in existing hospitals. There are many reasons for that, reimbursement being a huge one, however its simplistic to blame the silly notion of insured patient getting priority over unfunded patients.