In Northeastern Wisconsin, rape victims have been charged upwards of $1,200 for rape kits despite the fact that a public fund has been set up to cover the cost of rape kits.
In Wisconsin, when someone is raped, usually, the victim's health insurance company is billed for the cost of the rape kit. When a rape victim does not have health insurance, the State of Wisconsin has set up a Sexual Assault Forensic Exam Fund, which is funded by Wisconsin taxpayers, to pay for the costs of rape kits for victims who are uninsured. However, because of billing confusion and lack of education, some Wisconsin hospitals have billed uninsured victims for the cost of rape kits despite the availability of public funds to cover those costs.
I believe that it is the the responsibility of government to cover the costs of rape kits for sexual assault victims because, when someone is sexually assaulted, their body effectively becomes a crime scene, and they are submitting to an invasive exam designed to collect evidence of that crime. It is in the public interest that taxpayer money be used when a victim of sexual assault has no insurance to cover the cost of the rape kit. The fact that there are hospitals that are asking uninsured victims of sexual assault to pay for the cost of the rape kit despite public funds being available to pay for the cost of rape kits is, in my opinion, morally wrong.
I'm not a resident of the State of Wisconsin, but I haven't seen any Wisconsin Kossack write a diary on this story, so I'd figure I'd write a diary about it.