Every 30 minutes, on average, someone is treated in an American emergency room for a firearm injury. Many die, but most experience a hospital stay to receive care. And whether or not a person has health insurance can influence how long they get that care, according to a new yearlong investigation by The Trace and KFF Health News.
Our newsrooms analyzed Florida hospital billing data, available because of Florida state law. It included insurance status, the patient’s residential ZIP code, their race, and other demographic info. The data did not identify patients.
The results are a first-of-its-kind look at what happens to the insured and the uninsured who are shot and admitted to the hospital for treatment. Across Florida, the analysis of the data from 2018 to 2024 from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration shows five major takeaways:
Among the most severely injured patients, the uninsured stayed three fewer days in the hospital on average than their counterparts with insurance.
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.
Read the story here.