Poorer Health of Surgery Patients on Medicaid May Alter Law’s Bottom Line, By Robert Pear, May 17, 2014, New York Times: “Surgery patients covered by Medicaid arrive at the hospital in worse health, experience more complications, stay longer and cost more than patients with private insurance, a new study has found. The study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, may offer a preview of what to expect as millions of uninsured people qualify for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Although Medicaid patients in the study were generally younger than the privately insured patients, they were twice as likely to smoke and had higher rates of conditions that made surgery riskier. Those conditions, which can arise from years of poor health habits, include diabetes, lung disease and blood vessel blockage. . .”
Day: May 23, 2014
Inequality and Education
How Education Drives Inequality Among the 99%, By Brenda Cronin, May 23, 2014, Wall Street Journal: “Recent hand-wringing about income inequality has focused on the gap between the top 1% and everyone else. A new paper argues that the more telling inequities exist among the 99%, primarily driven by education. ‘The single-minded focus on the top 1% can be counterproductive given that the changes to the other 99% have been more economically significant,’ says David Autor, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist and author of the study. His paper, ‘Skills, Education and the Rise of Earnings Inequality Among the ‘Other 99 Percent’,’ comes as something of riposte to French economist Thomas Piketty, whose bestselling ‘Capital in the 21st Century’ has ignited sales and conversation around the world with its historical look at the fortunes of the top 1%. Mr. Autor estimates that since the early 1980s, the earnings gap between workers with a high school degree and those with a college education has become four times greater than the shift in income. . .”