- In places with scarce prenatal care, midwives deliver maternity solution, By David Wahlberg, November 23, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “The people who live in and around this small city where the foothills meet the plains can count on an important service: The hospital delivers babies. One reason maternity care is available in New Mexico’s San Miguel County, where the poverty rate is nearly twice the national average, is the presence of midwives, who oversee most of the births. Rural hospitals in New Mexico, Wisconsin and across the country have dropped deliveries in recent years because they can’t find enough doctors to do them. But the arrangement in Las Vegas, where only one doctor does obstetrics full time but three nurse midwives attend births, suggests midwives can help maintain maternity care in rural areas…”
- High deductibles mean less medical care for lower-income families, survey finds, By Eryn Brown, November 23, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Lower-income families with high-deductible insurance policies are more likely to delay or forego medical care because of cost than higher-income families, reported a study published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The findings are not surprising. But coming at a time when policymakers are working to keep healthcare costs down and outcomes up — calibrating insurance plans to motivate consumers to be choosier about the medical services they purchase, yet still seek enough care to remain healthy — the results could yield useful ideas, the researchers wrote…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty