Healthcare Daily Digest for Tuesday, 12 March: The High Cost of Being Poor

Oh, the Rich. With their yachts and their money and their off-shore bank-accounts and their inheritances and their special ads in the New Yorker about how their wealth management is much more complicated than, say, my wealth management — mostly because I don’t have any wealth to manage to speak of but we’re not talking about me here. We’re talking about the Rich. And you know what else the Rich have?

A longer life expectency.

Because that’s fair. Rich people need more life in order to better spend all the money.

This “rich live longer” paradigm has repercussions for the not-rich, though. As Monique Morrissey, an economist who focuses on retirement issues at the Economic Policy Institute, said in that Post article: “For many people, raising the retirement age would amount to a significant benefit cut.”

This, of course, is a right-now issue. Trends in life-expectency aren’t trending upwards. Boomers are living longer; boomers’ kids, though? Not fairing as well. But for those who are fortunate enough to be old, but not fortunate enough to be wealthy, hikes in eligibility ages for things like social security and Medicare end up being onerous personal budget slashes.

Tuesday headlines:

Listen as Michel Martin Interviews Dr Ben Carson: He’s described thusly: “Dr. Ben Carson is known for blazing trails in the neurological field – including breakthrough work separating conjoined twins. Now he’s making waves for his political views. Host Michel Martin talks with Dr. Carson about the current state of healthcare in America and his upcoming speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.”

The Rough Life of Florida Gov. Rick Scott: “Florida Gov. Rick Scott surprised the country last month when he stopped trashing health care reform to announce that he wanted to opt in to a federally funded expansion of Medicaid.” And that didn’t go over well with Republicans.

NOW it’s Serious: “Informatics Pioneer Says Healthcare Needs Better Systems.” We were waiting to see what infomatics pioneer Dr. Lawrence Weed had to say about healthcare. And now that we know…

If You’re in Olympia and You Have Pro-Union Signs, There’s a Strike Waiting for You: “Hundreds of healthcare workers walked off the job at an Olympia hospital early Monday, saying their own healthcare costs are too high.”

Republican Self-Satisfaction. So Refreshing: “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday that healthcare costs have risen dramatically in the nearly three years since the Democrats’ health reform law passed, which shows Republicans were right to downplay Democratic promises that costs would fall.”