Hospital Geograph Responsible for Treatment Disparities?

A recent presentation by health economist, Amitabh Chandra, argues that "African-Americans may get poorer medical treatment because they are more likely to go to bad hospitals."  According to an article that describes the presentation, Chandra asserted,

" . . . that geographic variations in care explain most racial disparities in treatment offers an alternate explanation to an Institute of Medicine report that placed more blame on physician-based discrimination.   'Instead of pushing the physician-discrimination story, we’re going to push a differences-in-hospital-quality story,” he said. The IOM lambasted southern hospitals in particular, but Chandra charged that racial disparities are a “local phenomenon,' with problems in northern hospitals as well."

Chandra and some of his colleagues have written several reports on their findings.