"Health care has often been debated as a technical or economic issue. That has been a mistake, I believe. At root, universal health care is not an economic or technical question but a moral one."

Those same critics sometimes argue that universal coverage needn’t be a top priority because anybody can get coverage at the emergency room

And this is part of why the health care system is in such dire shape. Instead of paying $20 for preventive care to stop a problem when it's just starting (because those horrible, lazy, amoral poor people will just TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR GENEROSITY if you give them handouts, dontchaknow), they think it's better to have this person get truly ill (with concomitant suffering) and then rack up hundreds or thousands of dollars in emergency room care.

Oh, yeah. That makes sense...

anybody can get coverage at the emergency room

ER doctors just apply "band-aids" and write prescriptions that the patients can't fill. This is not a viable alternative and anyone who thinks it is is kidding themselves.