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. …