America already has universal health coverage, and it is killing every hospital that has an emergency room. The flood of emigrants from Mexico and Central America, who come to the United States to work, still get an automatic entitlement to this free, universal health care. It is the major form of welfare they receive, since they are not entitled to food stamps or cash aid.

Approximately 46 million Americans, or 15.7 percent of the population, were without health insurance in 2004 (the latest government data available). But these Americans are not without access to medical care.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) passed by Congress in 1985, mandates that you have important rights when you go to a hospital's emergency room, regardless of your insurance status—or your immigration status

• You have the right to receive emergency care at any licensed facility with an emergency room.
• You have the right to be treated until your emergency medical condition is stabilized when you go to a hospital emergency room.
• You have the right be informed by the hospital of your right to receive emergency services, without regard to your ability to pay, prior to being transferred or discharged.
• You have a right not to be transferred from an emergency care facility against your will.

The real question is how these government-mandated rights to health care, imposed on hospitals and physicians who work in emergency rooms, will be paid for.

Over the last year alone, Los Angeles County has lost six emergency rooms and faces more closures. Statewide, more than 65 emergency departments have closed over the last decade, 28 of them since January 1, 2000, according to the state's Department of Health Services. This crisis is not limited to California, as it is happening all over the United States.

According to a report released by the California Medical Association (CMA), which advocates on behalf of physicians and their patients, nearly 80 percent of ERs lost money in 2004, the most recent year in which data were available. Statewide, the losses have reached more than $1 billion for both hospitals and physicians.

In 1993, a major attempt by Hillary Clinton and advocates of "universal health care" almost imposed a complex system of taxation and control over the American health care system. It failed, but the 1985 EMTALA law had already pushed the costs of medical care directly onto hospitals.

Hospitals do get some state and federal subsidies for their emergency rooms, and they receive extra amounts based on factors such as the number of illegal aliens and poverty clients they serve. But the tax subsidies are not large enough to cover the full costs, which is why many emergency rooms have closed.

The current crisis in medical care is a classic example of the problem with "welfare rights" in our society. Human rights to life, liberty, and property are guaranteed to each of us as individuals under a system of justice that makes sense, consistently. Each person, and our government, follows the rules of behavior not to commit force or fraud on other people.

But "welfare rights" are different. Under this alternative system, some people are guaranteed benefits that other people are forced to work and pay for. It might be too strong to call this alternative system a form of slavery, since it is mostly done by income taxation, but the essence of the problem is the same. Some people are guaranteed benefits and other people are forced to provide them—not out of charity, but by the use of the government's police power.

As the trend grows into a crisis, the entire medical care system of the United States is gradually being transformed into a system of socialized medicine. More and more politicians are advocating mandates to force taxpayers and employers to pay for the costs of medical care.

Hillary Clinton was just ahead of her time.