While we’re on the subject of guns and mass shootings, here’s something to consider.
Taxpayers have largely picked up the hospital tabs for victims of gun violence in the United States – around 80 percent of their emergency department and inpatient care – and funded more than half a billion dollars in medical care for firearm assault victims in 2010, according to a new study.
The victims, mostly young males and residents of low-income areas, are disproportionately more likely to be publicly insured or not have any insurance at all, according to the study by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, while they are hospitalized more than twice the national average.
The cost of a stay for a firearm assault injury was nearly $14,000 more than the average inpatient stay, so the medical bills of gun violence victims amount to about $630 million a year, according to Embry Howell, author of the study and a senior fellow with the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center.
Americans are paying more than half a billion dollars per year to treat gunshot wounds.
Maybe we should have less guns. Maybe it shouldn’t be easier to obtain a gun than healthcare.
No, I’m sorry. That’s crazy talk. We need more guns! Obviously.
I snark, but my gut tells me if you were to share this study with any number of conservative pundits, they would suggest that this is why emergency rooms should be allowed to turn people away. Just die. Follow Eric Bolling’s advice and kill yourself, you’ll save us money.