Our Health Policy Matters

“States’ rights” is as popular a rallying cry as ever as we enter the early stages of the 2012 election campaign.   To advocates of states’ rights, they are code words for state innovation and initiative, unhampered by the demands of a federal government.     In their minds, we are a United States of America.   To skeptics, we are a United States of America, and states’ rights are the code words of political leaders who want to run their states as fiefdoms and answer to no higher authority.   The new 2010 uninsured numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week make a compelling case against the states’ rights position. In the South, where the drum roll for states’ rights beats most loudly, 19% of all people were uninsured 2010 for the entire year .   This was more than in the West, where 18% were uninsured, the Midwest, where 13% were uninsured, and the Northeast, where only 12% were uninsured. Place clearly matters where health insurance i...

“States’ rights” is as popular a rallying cry as ever as we enter the early stages of the 2012 election campaign.   To advocates of states’ rights, they are code words for state innovation and initiative, unhampered by the demands of a federal government.     In their minds, we are a United States of America.   To skeptics, we are a United States of America, and states’ rights are the code words of political leaders who want to run their states as fiefdoms and answer to no higher authority.   The new 2010 uninsured numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week make a compelling case against the states’ rights position. In the South, where the drum roll for states’ rights beats most loudly, 19% of all people were uninsured 2010 for the entire year .   This was more than in the West, where 18% were uninsured, the Midwest, where 13% were uninsured, and the Northeast, where only 12% were uninsured. Place clearly matters where health insurance i...