When US companies drug test, they wind up hiring more black people

http://qz.com/210345/when-us-companies-drug-test-they-wind-up-hiring-more-black-people/


Today, almost half of all US jobs require a drug test, and it turns out that companies that test their employees hire more black people. But that’s not a result that reflects well on Americans.
+
Abigail Wozniak, a Notre Dame labor economist, has developed a model to show how the rise of employee drug testing in the United States has affected different populations. What she found surprised her: In states where testing is prevalent thanks to supportive laws, black employment increased between 7% and 30%, and wages for black workers increased by between 1.4% and 13%.
+
That’s surprising because in America’s often-misguided war on drugs, black people tend to suffer disproportionately—just look at the statistics on arrests and the controversy over “stop and frisk” policing tactics. There’s plenty of evidence that black and white Americans use illicit drugs at roughly the same rate, though white Americans are more likely than black Americans to abuse alcohol:

?w=640&h=460

But despite that, according to studies cited in the paper, there’s wide overestimation of black people’s drug use in the US by everyone from police to hiring managers to young black people themselves.

Obamacare Works, Massachusetts Proves It

Massachusetts' health care reform in 2006 resulted in greater coverage and lower death rates, which has positive implications for the Affordable Care Act

Four years after Massachusetts underwent a major health reform, death rates in the state dropped.



In 2006, the state of Massachusetts expanded Medicaid coverage and offered subsidized private insurance. And since Massachusetts has been one of the models for the principles of the Affordable Care Act, which focuses on prevention, health advocates and policy makers have been watching the state closely to see how well the strategies work.

Apparently, pretty well. Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health compared mortality rates from before and after Massachusetts’ health care law, and found that deaths among non-elderly residents dropped 2.9% compared to similar states without the reform. The researchers looked at mortality rates up to 2010 and concentrated on deaths that were likely to be prevented with access to health care — things like infections, heart disease and cancer. Based on this data, it’s estimated that Massachusetts’ health care re-haul prevented 320 deaths a year by providing patients with the opportunity to the latest treatments for blood pressure, high cholesterol and other heart disease risk factors, as well as regular screening for cancers.

http://time.com/88320/obamacare-works-massachusetts-proves-it/

Obamacare enrollment may approach 18 million

Two weeks after the president delivered the health care headline of the year—Obamacare enrollment reaches 8 million—the administration has published the story behind it.

In an issue brief released Thursday afternoon, health officials confirmed that 8 million people selected private (“marketplace”) health plans through the state and federal insurance exchanges during the enrollment period that ran from October 1 through April 19. An additional 4.8 million enrolled in Medicaid during that period, and an estimated 5 million bought individual policies outside the exchanges. Together, the figures push the six-month total to nearly 18 million.

No one knows exactly how many of the new enrollees were previously uninsured—the early estimates vary widely—but the new report suggests the coverage is expanding. Among the 5.2 million people who requested subsidies through the federal exchange, only 13% (695,000) reported having health insurance when they applied. It could take two more years to tease out the law’s impact on insurance coverage, but a recent Gallup poll suggests the uninsured population shrank by more than a percentage point (from 17.3% to 16.1%) between December and January, continuing a six-month decline.

The health care landscape still varies dramatically by region, but the gains in coverage weren’t limited to blue states. Hostile state officials have worked actively to undermine Obamacare in Texas, Florida and Georgia, but they were among the dozen states where enrollments doubled in March, helping to push the national total 2 million beyond the projected 6 million.



http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obamacare-enrollment-may-approach-18-million

When it rains, the earth moves in Baltimore (landslide)