There's a much more informative article available here. [1] Stabilization does not have the colloquial meaning. It's defined as, "To provide such medical treatment of the condition as may be necessary to assure, within reasonable medical probability, that no material deterioration of the condition is likely to result from or occur during the transfer of the individual from a facility, or, with respect to an emergency medical condition..."
So somebody with a serious medial condition could be discharged, but only once that condition was treated and unlikely to further deteriorate. And then there's also a bunch of other rules hospitals that accept medicare have to follow for all patients, which are similar in spirit to EMTALA. And then there are going to state rules on top of all of this. Violations are severe with penalties able to be imposed on both the hospital and the doctors/staff involved - up to and including loss of license, and they are not covered by malpractice insurance. And the courts have invariably ruled on the side of patients, so I don't think there's any doctor that's going to be looking to try to short-serve the requirements of the law. Part of the reason you can find a million negative articles about it!
So somebody with a serious medial condition could be discharged, but only once that condition was treated and unlikely to further deteriorate. And then there's also a bunch of other rules hospitals that accept medicare have to follow for all patients, which are similar in spirit to EMTALA. And then there are going to state rules on top of all of this. Violations are severe with penalties able to be imposed on both the hospital and the doctors/staff involved - up to and including loss of license, and they are not covered by malpractice insurance. And the courts have invariably ruled on the side of patients, so I don't think there's any doctor that's going to be looking to try to short-serve the requirements of the law. Part of the reason you can find a million negative articles about it!
[1] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1305897/