• Posted October 2, 2025

Taxpayers Paid Billions Treating Gunshot Wounds, Study Estimates

American taxpayers have foot the bill for billions of dollars spent treating gunshot wounds, a new study says.

Treatment for firearm injuries cost U.S. hospitals an estimated $7.7 billion between 2016 and 2021, with the largest share falling on urban hospitals that serve the highest proportion of Medicaid patients, researchers report in JAMA Health Forum.

Ultimately, Medicaid covered 52% of the cost of patching up the wounded, researchers said.

“Gun injuries are a source of financial strain on hospitals, particularly large safety-net trauma center hospitals that often operate on thin margins,” researcher Alexander Lundberg, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said in a news release.

Recent Medicaid funding cuts adopted by Congress will push these hospitals closer to the financial brink, given that the program’s reimbursement rates often fall short of actual treatment costs, researchers noted.

“Because in many states Medicaid reimbursement is typically below the true cost of care, trauma center hospitals are already absorbing significant losses,” said senior researcher Dr. Anne Stey, an assistant professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

“Medicaid funding cuts could further financially destabilize trauma centers,” Stey said in a news release. “Some could close, or stop being trauma centers that provide the high-level and life-saving trauma care that all American families need after car accidents, falls and bike accidents.”

For the study, researchers analyzed hospital records from six states — Arkansas, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Wisconsin. These states collect high-quality data on hospitalizations and ER visits.

The team tracked every hospital visit for a new firearm injury that occurred between 2016 and 2021, then used the data to generate national estimates.

Annual costs remained stable from 2016 to 2019, averaging about $1.2 billion per year, before increasing to $1.6 billion in 2021. This 33% increase coincided with a rise in firearm injuries that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers said.

Results also showed that the annual cost of gun injury treatment for children and teens grew 54% between 2019 and 2021.

“In addition to the overall price tag of hospital care for firearm injury, we found that $684 million of those costs were for patients younger than 18, and these costs grew by over 50% from 2019 to 2021,” lead researcher Dr. Regina Royan, an assistant professor of emergency medicine and neurology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said in a news release.

Results showed that Medicaid covered 52% of hospital costs related to gunshot wounds. Other sources of cost coverage included private insurance (20%); self-pay or uninsured patients (16%); and Medicare (6%).

The study can’t account for indirect costs to American families, such as lost wages of patients and their caregivers, long-term disability or the emotional and economic burden of gun violence in communities, researchers noted.

More information

The National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation (NIHCM) has more on the impact of gun violence on society.

SOURCE: Northwestern Medicine, news release, Sept. 26, 2025