New program to curb hospital return visits may burden smaller ones in poorer areas

"Eight California hospitals — including four in the Los Angeles area — are among the institutions paying the maximum fine under a new Medicare program designed to reduce high patient readmission rates. Under the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act, the federal government has started fining hospitals with high readmissions rates as much as 1 percent of the money that Medicare would normally reimburse them. Working to reduce runaway costs, Medicare is now penalizing hospitals across California and nationwide for patients who must be admitted again within 30 days," according to an investigation by KPCC.

"Change of ownership, key to reassessment, is cut-and-dried for homeowners but not businesses. It means a loss of tens of millions of dollars a year in tax revenue," according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times.

"Despite a state law, many Level Three sex offenders are ending up in the same few neighborhoods," the Minneapolis Star-Tribune found from its investigation.

A Star Tribune investigation of 1,330 Twin Cities real estate transactions known as contracts for deed reveals that they are beset by inflated prices, high interest rates and other terms that almost guarantee the buyer will default. In hundreds of cases, records show, sellers failed to provide mandated home inspections that would have revealed code violations and safety hazards. Some buyers said they were misled about outstanding debts attached to the properties. Others thought they were signing a lease.

“The greatest income inequality in the state was in Philadelphia and Allegheny County from 2009 to 2011, according to recently compiled Census estimates that measure the gap between richest and poorest. The chasm between rich and poor can be seen near Pittsburgh in the boroughs of Fox Chapel and Sharpsburg, a wealthy bedroom community and its economically struggling neighbor.”

“Thirty percent of claims sampled from for- profit homes were deemed improper, compared to just 12 percent from non-profits, according to data Bloomberg News obtained from the inspector general’s office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services via a Freedom of Information Act request.”

“The low-income neighborhood of older wood-frame homes in West Dallas is a far cry from the suburb of newly built brick houses in Frisco 30 miles to the north. But the two North Texas communities share a bond: Both were contaminated by industrial lead for nearly half a century.”

After a report was released by Spokane’s regional health district, the newspaper mapped life expectancy for each neighborhood in Spokane – showing the differences in well-being among its many neighborhoods: People in the county’s wealthy neighborhoods can expect to live longer than those in the poorer ones, by years and years.

"Wisconsin's patchwork system of regulating mobile home communities often forces communities such as Plymouth to act alone when a park owner won't make repairs to houses with malfunctioning plumbing, broken heating systems and mold-covered walls, a Gannett Wisconsin Media investigation has found."

"Even though the state has the authority to respond to residents' complaints and revoke park owners' licenses, responsibility for oversight is spread between two agencies. The results can be long delays in responding, frustration for residents whose complaints bounce around in state bureaucracy and unchecked health risks for tenants, many of whom are elderly and poor."

"Thousands of vacant homes across South Florida have deteriorated into eyesores that violate local health and safety laws, depress property values and spread blight. The owners of these homes: some of the world's biggest banks."

"In an extensive investigation of foreclosed homes plaguing neighborhoods, the Sun Sentinel found more than 10,300 property code violations lodged against banks in 10 South Florida cities since 2007."