Don’t Expect Health Coverage If You Survive a Gunshot Wound

The Republican rollback could shift the cost of firearm violence to taxpayers, warns a gun-control group.
How Health-Care Reform Could Affect Hospitals, Insurers
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

Among gunshot survivors, 51-year-old House Majority Whip Steve Scalise is an outlier. Such victims are more likely to be low-earning black men between the ages of 15 and 24. Scalise, who is white, does share one fundamental characteristic with these younger men: Being shot means he now has a preexisting condition in the eyes of health insurers.

For most people, that status could mean more financial suffering under a Republican rollback of the Affordable Care Act.