Patchwork Nation the Health Care Edition

The authors of Patchwork Nation decentralize the country into 12 different county types in order to get a more accurate picture of the American socio-economy and its different political attitudes. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has taken a similar approach towards looking at the state of America's healthcare system. The new report breaks down the country into regions, states and counties, and examines the factors that influence healthcare such as insurance rates, clinical care, income, and behavior. Like the authors of Patchwork Nation, they conclude that their is a wide disparity of healthcare outcomes across counties, even within the same state. However, as the Supreme Court deliberates on the constitutionality of the individual mandate, they should keep in mind that inaccess to insurance is just but one factor leading to our country's mess that is a healthcare system.