Economic recovery or not, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer:

Economic recovery or not, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer:

Not so long ago I made the argument that the numbers showing that the economic recovery only benefited the rich were exaggerated and out of context. I argued that since the wealthiest people in the country kept their money in the stock market when it crashed, they made it all back and then some during the recovery while the middle class pulled out of the market and lost most of what they had invested and didn't benefit from the rebound. You can see that tweet here. My good friend and economist Rob Mahrt was quick to counter with the data and charts in this article and summed them up concisely in this tweet to help me understand why I was wrong. The rich really did get richer during the economic recovery even controlling for capital gains, which is the money made from investments. What is worse, the poor got poorer too. The number of Americans living in poverty climbed to 46.5 million last year, but the poverty rate remained at 15%. The poverty threshold is $23,492 for a family of four. That works out to the entire family spending a total (including housing, food, insurance, etc) of $66 dollars a day or about $16 per person. That is extremely low in my eyes. The only positive takeaway from this report was that slightly more people have health insurance. We have a long way to go. 

Walgreens to Give Workers Payments to Buy Health Plans:

Walgreens to Give Workers Payments to Buy Health Plans:

Walgreens is the largest major employer to overhaul its health program, as the company will give employees money to buy their own coverage on an exchange. They cite rising healthcare costs and expenses related to complying with the new healthcare laws as the reason for the change. It appears that IBM and Time Warner will also be moving from company administered programs to funding exchanges as well.

Paying Doctors For Performance Leads to Better Care

Study: Paying Doctors For Performance Leads to Better Care:

It isn’t surprising that pay for performance leads to better performance.  People respond to incentives. However, the issue is that people under normal circumstances will not pay more to go see a superior physician. The best predictor of which doctor an individual will see is not their performance or standard of care, but whether or not the doctor takes their insurance. More doctors and physicians than ever are leaving Medicare given the low reimbursement rates and mounting rules, in seek of better pay. The restrictions of government funded health care means that people will go to the providers that accept their insurance and not necessarily the best available.