In a New England Journal of Medicine article from November 18, 2010, Zhang and colleagues map out rates of what are arguably inappropriate prescriptions. For instance this picture shows rates of high risk drugs in Medicare recipients, drugs like Valium (and its cousins) which are known to cause falls and other complications:
This picture shows that WHERE you live often influences medical care, in ways that don’t make any medical sense. It also seems to show higher rates of inappropriate use, the darker areas, in regions which have been voting Republican lately. That raises an interesting irony: If Obamacare improves the quality of Medicare, through any of its quality improvement initiatives, it could end up benefiting Republicans more than Democrats.
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