There was a period in time where there were very high losses in emergency rooms because there are legal obligations for conferring care in that setting. Many emergency rooms were getting closed down and that's also a big problem for communities. So it's in a way understandable (not necessarily excusable), because some of this I would infer is cost shifting to meet those obligations. Maybe it's shifted to too much profit now.
Both sides of the problem, IMHO come from completely disconnected cost/profit transaction loops in America's healthcare. It's one big reason why single payer systems cost so much less. There is a much more straightforward relation between costs, care, and budgets in those systems so you can actually manage the direct problems instead of managing multiple red-tape layers each trying to competitively maximize, minimize different areas.