According to an Urban Institute Study called The Hospital Costs of Firearms Assaults fount that about 80 percent of the cost of treating victims of gun violence in 2010 was borne in part by taxpayers. That means taxpayers paid for victims' care either through government
programs like Medicaid or through publicly-funded programs that
subsidize hospital care for those who don't have insurance and can’t
afford to pay.
“The victims are concentrated among young, poor males,” said the
report's author, Embry Howell, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.
“This is the population we’re talking about and their costs are very
high. It's one group that is heavily uninsured."
Hospitals in the U.S. spent $630 million in 2010 treating the victims of gun violence
-- everything from minor gunshot wounds to injuries that required
days-long stays -- and public funds provided most of that money. The
Medicaid costs of gun violence alone that year amounted to approximately
$327 million.
Notably, the report found that the average cost of a hospital visit
for a gun violence victim is $14,000 more than that of the average
hospital stay, due to the severity of the injuries often involved.
Although, the true economic cost of gun violence is much larger that what hospitals are spending on care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that gun violence deaths cost the U.S. economy $37 billion and gun injuries $3.7 billion in 2005, the last year the public health agency conducted an analysis. In addition, taxpayers often end up footing the bill for social services for gun violence victims, as well as building the expensive hospital trauma units needed for their treatment.
One bit of good news:
Many of the victims of gun violence who are uninsured will see their
hospital bills go down as President Obama’s health care reform law
offers more low-income Americans access to Medicaid in many states.
The Bad News:
But
because Medicaid is a government-subsidized program, Howell noted, the
cost of gun violence to taxpayers will go up.
In other words, society bears the cost of gun violence, but that's another thing I've been sayiing all along.
Showing posts with label Obamacare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obamacare. Show all posts
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Monday, July 16, 2012
Of Muskets and Health Care
I found this surfing the web, from Slate. I think it's a better take on the Militia-Health Care comparison, but it does take the debate far too literally. If the analogy is being made, it is more that the effects of each are the same:
A federal judge in Virginia has declared unconstitutional the health care provision requiring many Americans to purchase insurance. On Monday, Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled that while Congress may regulate interstate commerce, it cannot force citizens to buy goods (like health insurance) on the private market. Some of the law's defenders have argued that Congress did just that when it passed the Militia Act of 1792, which compelled all "able-bodied" white men of certain ages to have a battle-ready musket or rifle. But that law hails from an era in which the United States were still young and our politicians wore white wigs. How good of a defense, really, is the Militia Act for the insurance mandate?
It's pretty flimsy. The constitutionality of the insurance mandate relies on the so-called Commerce Clause, which grants Congress the power "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes." The Militia Act (actually two bills passed within a week of one another in May 1792), on the other hand, depends on the Militia Clause, which authorizes the government to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia." Because the two mandates have such different foundations, the constitutionality of one is essentially independent of the other.
Separate clauses aside, the Militia Act of 1792 would still be poor precedent for the insurance mandate, because Congress never enforced, or even meant to enforce, the law at the federal level. Lost in the health-care inflected discussion of the bill is its initial purpose: To standardize state militias and to authorize the president to call them into action. The government expected each state to achieve standardization through locally issued regulations, and to handle the gun-toting provision independently. As it happens, the state-level requirements and penalties were onerous, especially for poorer men. The standard-issue musket, which was too heavy and high-caliber to be useful off the battlefield (say, for hunting), cost about $13—several weeks' wages for the average Joe, who earned less than a dollar a day. Men who did not comply were fined as much as $12 (the penalty in New York), and those who didn't pay the fine could be imprisoned for debt.
Not long after the Militia Act passed, it came under increasing criticism for being (on the one hand) unfair and (on the other) too weak. Wealthy men could afford to pay the fines, avoiding both militia duty and prison, but poor and working-class men could not. The bill had also been watered down as it crept through Congress; it didn't create any standards for militia organization, tactics, or training, as its original proponents had wanted. The resulting aggregation of state militias was fairly ineffective. Though federally commanded state militias helped George Washington quell the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, their poor performance in the War of 1812 convinced many politicians that the government needed to rethink its military strategy. Starting in 1840, with Massachusetts, states began repealing their compulsory militias or simply letting those militias decay, favoring volunteer organizations instead.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Barry Friedman of New York University, Richard H. Kohn of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Kevin Sweeney of Amherst College .
Of Muskets and Health Care
 |
| An antique musket. |
Did the Militia Act of 1792 set a precedent for Obama's health insurance mandate?
A federal judge in Virginia has declared unconstitutional the health care provision requiring many Americans to purchase insurance. On Monday, Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled that while Congress may regulate interstate commerce, it cannot force citizens to buy goods (like health insurance) on the private market. Some of the law's defenders have argued that Congress did just that when it passed the Militia Act of 1792, which compelled all "able-bodied" white men of certain ages to have a battle-ready musket or rifle. But that law hails from an era in which the United States were still young and our politicians wore white wigs. How good of a defense, really, is the Militia Act for the insurance mandate?
It's pretty flimsy. The constitutionality of the insurance mandate relies on the so-called Commerce Clause, which grants Congress the power "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes." The Militia Act (actually two bills passed within a week of one another in May 1792), on the other hand, depends on the Militia Clause, which authorizes the government to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia." Because the two mandates have such different foundations, the constitutionality of one is essentially independent of the other.
Separate clauses aside, the Militia Act of 1792 would still be poor precedent for the insurance mandate, because Congress never enforced, or even meant to enforce, the law at the federal level. Lost in the health-care inflected discussion of the bill is its initial purpose: To standardize state militias and to authorize the president to call them into action. The government expected each state to achieve standardization through locally issued regulations, and to handle the gun-toting provision independently. As it happens, the state-level requirements and penalties were onerous, especially for poorer men. The standard-issue musket, which was too heavy and high-caliber to be useful off the battlefield (say, for hunting), cost about $13—several weeks' wages for the average Joe, who earned less than a dollar a day. Men who did not comply were fined as much as $12 (the penalty in New York), and those who didn't pay the fine could be imprisoned for debt.
Not long after the Militia Act passed, it came under increasing criticism for being (on the one hand) unfair and (on the other) too weak. Wealthy men could afford to pay the fines, avoiding both militia duty and prison, but poor and working-class men could not. The bill had also been watered down as it crept through Congress; it didn't create any standards for militia organization, tactics, or training, as its original proponents had wanted. The resulting aggregation of state militias was fairly ineffective. Though federally commanded state militias helped George Washington quell the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, their poor performance in the War of 1812 convinced many politicians that the government needed to rethink its military strategy. Starting in 1840, with Massachusetts, states began repealing their compulsory militias or simply letting those militias decay, favoring volunteer organizations instead.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Barry Friedman of New York University, Richard H. Kohn of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Kevin Sweeney of Amherst College .
Friday, June 29, 2012
Life and Art
Was it wishful thinking?
How long before the right wing nut conspiracy theory crazies try to portray this as some sort of one world order, or the illuminati, or the U.N. hijacking the real SCOTUS decision? Did Faux news nuts even notice that the report was wrong? They're so fact averse, they so consistently receive factually inaccurate information, they might not figure it out for days.
The Colbert Report predicted something like this earlier this week, in response to the pre-recording of multiple health care decision outcomes:
From the Guardian:
Healthcare ruling: CNN and Fox News report wrong decision
CNN apologises for reporting too quickly on the supreme court ruling, but they weren't the only ones to get it wrong
CNN fixed their mistake within minutes, but not before the error went viral. Photograph: CNN.com
It was one of the biggest news days of the year so far, and within minutes of the supreme court ruling, "CNN" was trending on social media networks worldwide.
Unfortunately for the news channel, it proved to be the wrong kind of trending – CNN was being lambasted for reporting precisely the opposite of what had actually happened.
"Individual mandate struck down," the breaking news banner on CNN's US domestic news network proclaimed. "Supreme court finds measure unconstitutional."
In fact, the supreme court had actually upheld President Obama's healthcare law. The confusion arose because it declared the individual mandate – which obliges most Americans to secure health insurance – as unconstitutional in terms of what is know as the "commerce clause" but allowed it to stand as a tax.
CNN was not the only news organisation to get it wrong – Fox News also declared the individual mandate unconstitutional. But it seemed that Fox was let off lightly compared with its more middle-of-the road rival.
How long before the right wing nut conspiracy theory crazies try to portray this as some sort of one world order, or the illuminati, or the U.N. hijacking the real SCOTUS decision? Did Faux news nuts even notice that the report was wrong? They're so fact averse, they so consistently receive factually inaccurate information, they might not figure it out for days.
The Colbert Report predicted something like this earlier this week, in response to the pre-recording of multiple health care decision outcomes:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Colbert News Alert - Obamacare Supreme Court Ruling | ||||
| ||||
From the Guardian:
Healthcare ruling: CNN and Fox News report wrong decision
CNN apologises for reporting too quickly on the supreme court ruling, but they weren't the only ones to get it wrong
CNN fixed their mistake within minutes, but not before the error went viral. Photograph: CNN.com
It was one of the biggest news days of the year so far, and within minutes of the supreme court ruling, "CNN" was trending on social media networks worldwide.
Unfortunately for the news channel, it proved to be the wrong kind of trending – CNN was being lambasted for reporting precisely the opposite of what had actually happened.
"Individual mandate struck down," the breaking news banner on CNN's US domestic news network proclaimed. "Supreme court finds measure unconstitutional."
In fact, the supreme court had actually upheld President Obama's healthcare law. The confusion arose because it declared the individual mandate – which obliges most Americans to secure health insurance – as unconstitutional in terms of what is know as the "commerce clause" but allowed it to stand as a tax.
CNN was not the only news organisation to get it wrong – Fox News also declared the individual mandate unconstitutional. But it seemed that Fox was let off lightly compared with its more middle-of-the road rival.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
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