Insurance may narrow race gap in access to surgery

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Wider insurance coverage erased racial differences in who got minimally invasive surgery in Massachusetts, according to a new study. After the state increased access to insurance in 2006, racial disparities in the proportion of people having gallbladders or appendixes removed with minimally invasive techniques - versus traditional "open" surgery - disappeared, researchers found. "The Massachusetts experience provides a really unique and natural experiment to measure the effect of insurance expansion," Dr. ...



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