KFF Health News and The Trace report that gunshot victims in Republican-controlled Florida are given far less care in hospitals if they do not have insurance:
When uninsured patients arrive at hospitals in Florida with gunshot wounds, on average they spend significantly fewer days in the hospital — in some cases half the time — than those with health insurance, according to the data analysis.
Among the most severely injured patients, the uninsured stayed three fewer days in the hospital on average than their counterparts with insurance…
Across Florida, the analysis of hospital billing data from 2018 to 2024 obtained from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration shows.
Uninsured patients make up a quarter of the more than 20,000 gunshot wound hospitalizations identified, making them the largest single group treated for firearm injuries.
Uninsured gunshot victims had hospital stays of about six days on average, only three-quarters of the time spent by patients with private insurance and less than half the average stay for patients on traditional Medicaid, the public health insurance program for poor and disabled people.
The gap in hospital care persisted regardless of hospital size, location, or ownership type, including at facilities that receive taxpayer money with a mandate to treat all patients regardless of their ability to pay.
Of the gunshot wound patients, nearly half were Black, making the group highly overrepresented. About a quarter of nonwhite patients were uninsured, versus fewer than a fifth of white patients.
The inequality echoes a long history of discrimination in U.S. healthcare against Black and Latino patients, groups that suffer disproportionately from firearm violence and a lack of health insurance.
(Sources: KFF Health News and The Trace)