Who Pays?

Americans have no right to health care. In this respect, we stand almost alone among the industrialized nations of the world. Only some of our citizens pay the price directly for this lapse in commitment, however. In this issue of the Journal, Braveman and her colleagues1 remind us again of who those citizens are.Reviewing discharge data about more than 146,000 births in eight California counties in 1982, 1984, and 1986, the authors found that adverse outcomes — defined as a hospital stay of more than five days, transfer to another facility, or death — were more common among . . .