Does Poverty Help To Explain Medical Practice Variation?
Is poverty the major factor underlying geographic variation in health care? It assuredly is. There is abundant evidence that poverty is strongly associated with poor health status, greater per capita health care spending, more hospital readmissions and poorer outcomes. It is the single strongest factor in variation in health care and the single greatest contributor to “excess” health care spending. It should be the focus of health care reform but, sadly, many provisions in the current bills will worsen the problem.
Much of this is discussed elsewhere on this blog and in our recent “Report to The President and The Congress.” In this posting, I would simply like to tap into your common sense. We all know that poverty is geographic. There are wealthy neighborhoods and impoverished ones, rich states and poor ones, developed countries and developing ones. Sometimes poverty is regional, as in Mississippi, but sometimes it’s confined to “poverty ghettos,” as in the South Bronx. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at PHYSICIANS and HEALTH CARE REFORM Commentaries and Controversies*
