Texas Legislature signed off on a new law that allows emergency room or admissions personnel to take the thumbprint of a person who received emergency care if the person does not possess personal identification at the time of care, or the person is unconscious, or is transported across the Texas-Mexico borger by ambulance or helicopter while receiving care, and is taken to a hospital with digital fingerprint capabilities (Sec. 773.015).
The most obvious reasoning for this is to allow hospitals to identify those with a debt for medical services (which from a business stand-point is not a bad idea). Talk about a powerful lobbying group. I'm curious how long it will take the private sector to establish a database for non-criminal debt collections.