STAT⁠44%

The ERs that can turn patients away — and are reaping millions ⁠21%

By Tara Bannow⁠66%

6/29/2026, 1:30:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Biased Writer Voice, and Unattributed Quote, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 20.7% saturation with 48 hits. Analysis detected 342 faulty-reasoning hits from 232 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 35% and a BS Rank of ⁠21% (17,373 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 79.40% of the article peer group.

Robert Behounek walked into the Albuquerque emergency room last fall with telltale signs of a heart attack. 
For weeks, he’d been having trouble breathing and terrible swelling all over his body. 
What began as searing pain in one of his arms was now a relentless ache in his chest. 
The receptionist at Albuquerque ER & Hospital asked for his health insurance card, but he didn’t have insurance. 
She told Behounek that his visit could cost upward of $1,600. 
“I said, ‘I don’t have that. 
Can you just bill me afterward? 
I’m worried I’m having a heart attack,’” Behounek recalled. 
“She just said, ‘There’s nothing we can do for you. 
We can’t see you here unless you pay the cost first.’ 
I said, ‘But you guys are an ER,’ and she said, ‘We’re not that kind of ER.’” 
For the past 40 years, it’s been illegal in the U.S. for emergency departments to turn away patients because of an inability to pay. 
But that only applies to hospitals that contract with Medicare. 
Houston-based Nutex Health, which runs the hospital Behounek visited, has opted not to at most of its hospitals, so it’s not bound by that law. 
Nutex claims it complies voluntarily, screening every patient to ensure they’re not dying before demanding payment. 
But some patients say they were never screened. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 10.8%Tara Bannow: 1.1%STAT: 3.4%Confirmation Bias10.8%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 1.5%STAT: 1.3%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 9.5%Tara Bannow: 1.6%STAT: 3.9%Availability Heuristic9.5%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 1.0%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.4%STAT: 0.4%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 1.3%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 5.2%Tara Bannow: 22.4%STAT: 8.2%Framing Effect5.2%This article: 4.7%Tara Bannow: 1.5%STAT: 0.7%Loss Aversion4.7%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.9%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 6.9%Tara Bannow: 1.0%STAT: 3.3%Optimism Bias6.9%This article: 3.9%Tara Bannow: 0.7%STAT: 1.8%Pessimism Bias3.9%This article: 20.7%Tara Bannow: 8.3%STAT: 8.5%Negativity Bias20.7%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 1.0%STAT: 1.1%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 4.7%Tara Bannow: 0.3%STAT: 0.4%Fundamental Attribution Error4.7%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 4.0%STAT: 0.4%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.1%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 1.1%STAT: 1.3%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 1.2%STAT: 0.1%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.4%STAT: 1.6%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.4%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 1.2%STAT: 0.4%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.4%Straw Man0.0%This article: 17.2%Tara Bannow: 1.6%STAT: 4.7%Appeal to Authority17.2%This article: 7.3%Tara Bannow: 4.6%STAT: 1.5%False Dilemma7.3%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 1.2%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 3.4%Tara Bannow: 2.3%STAT: 4.6%Hasty Generalization3.4%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.2%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.4%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 3.9%Tara Bannow: 3.9%STAT: 3.6%Appeal to Emotion3.9%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.9%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 2.2%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.0%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.5%STAT: 0.7%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 8.6%Tara Bannow: 2.7%STAT: 3.3%Anecdotal8.6%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 10.8%Tara Bannow: 1.5%STAT: 2.1%Ambiguity (Equivocation)10.8%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.3%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 11.2%Tara Bannow: 1.3%STAT: 1.5%Unattributed Quote11.2%This article: 2.6%Tara Bannow: 1.7%STAT: 0.9%Quote-first Misdirection2.6%This article: 15.9%Tara Bannow: 8.7%STAT: 6.0%Biased Writer Voice15.9%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 2.1%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.0%STAT: 0.9%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.8%STAT: 0.2%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Tara Bannow: 0.5%STAT: 3.3%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

232 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers32%attributed speech157writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 12 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 18 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 18 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Behounek • 6 words • 100.0% coverageRobert Behounek • 6 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Behounek • 9 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Behounek • 10 words • 100.0% coverageRobert Behounek • 11 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Behounek • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 10 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 25 words • 100.0% coverageNutex Health • 16 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Nutex Health

100%flagged-word coverage
16 attributed words21% of attributed speech71% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Unattributed Quote+100.0 ptsWriter: 0.0%Nutex Health: 100.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice-23.6 ptsWriter: 23.6%Nutex Health: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.