Improving health in Georgia cities?
National surveys with a high subjectivity quotient are kind of like essay questions on school tests (or, especially in this part of the country, college football polls) — your concern about the imprecision factor is inversely proportional to how high a grade you get.
In that regard, Georgia’s urban health care markets, including Columbus, have reasons for both skepticism and gratification after the latest public health ”scorecard” from the Commonwealth Fund (commonwealthfund.org), a private nonpartisan foundation that supports independent research and grant programs on health and social issues.
The prevailing negative stat, to nobody’s real surprise, is that all of the state’s seven ranked metro areas, like most others in the South, were in the bottom half of the 306 included in the national survey, as reported this week in Georgia Health News.
But all seven showed overall improvement from 2011 through 2014, as measured in the four general categories of access and affordability; prevention and treatment; avoidable hospital costs; and healthy lifestyles.
Atlanta ranked highest among Georgia markets at 189th; Columbus was second at 207th. The other five were Augusta, 229, Savannah, 247, Albany, 256, Macon, 294 and Rome, 298.
Columbus improved in 14 specific categories, including fewer adults unable to afford care, higher hospital safety scores, better care of nursing home residents and lower adult obesity rates. Nearby Albany improved in the categories of uninsured adults and high-risk residents who had not had a medical exam in the last two years.
Poverty-plagued rural southwest Georgia continued to fall behind the state’s urban areas. The percentage of adults with a regular source of care got worse, as did potentially avoidable emergency room visits.
Marsha Davis, associate dean at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health, told Georgia Health News: “This highlights the need for everyone in Georgia to have equal access to health insurance, health care, preventive care and the ability to live a healthy lifestyle no matter where they live.”
Tax (break) time
Georgians, especially but not exclusively those with children headed back to school or college, should be getting ready to take advantage of the state’s summer sales tax amnesty weekend, coming up in just two weeks.
Over the July 30-31 tax holiday, most clothing with a sale price of $100 or less per item will be exempt from sales tax. This includes many kinds of athletic gear.
Computers, as well as much computer equipment and softwear bought for non-commercial use at $1,000 or less per item will also be sales tax exempt.
And as usual, there will be no sales tax charged on most traditional school supplies purchased for individual use with a sales price of $20 or less per item. A detailed list of items that will and will not be tax exempt over the sales tax holiday is available here.
This story was originally published July 14, 2016 at 4:06 PM with the headline "Improving health in Georgia cities?."