Contracting Out in the Transit Industry

2019 ◽  
pp. 217-235
Author(s):  
Suzanne Leland ◽  
Olga V. Smirnova
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
The United States ◽  
Contracting Out ◽  
Government Accounting ◽  
Provision Of Services ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
The Government ◽  
Enhance Efficiency ◽  
Transit Agencies

Since the Government Accounting Office report “Transit Agencies' Use of Contracting to Provide Service,” there is a growing interest in contracting out and any measures increasing efficiency and cost-savings. This chapter looks at the results of a unique national survey of transit agency managers conducted in 2017 for a modern snapshot of the transit industry in the United States. While there are specific factors that make transit contracting easier (e.g., competition in the provision of services), there are also factors that require contracting out but make monitoring of contracts more difficult (e.g., no capacity to provide services and monitoring in-house). The authors discuss these factors and provide illustrative examples of factors that may enhance efficiency.

Commentary on Canadian Health Insurance: Lessons for the United States

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore R. Marmor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Insurance Industry ◽  
The United States ◽  
Congressional Hearings ◽  
Government Accounting ◽  
American Health Care ◽  
National Comparison ◽  
Health Insurance Industry ◽  
The Government

The Government Accounting Office's comparatively favorable report on Canada's National Health Insurance program (Medicare) prompted a firestorm of reaction: criticism from the health insurance industry primarily and praise from advocates of single-payer models of American reform particularly. Congressional hearings aired this controversy, and this article is a revised version of the author's testimony to the Government Operations Committee, June 18, 1991. The author examines the legitimacy of cross-national comparison as a general analytic tool and the lessons to be learned from North American health care comparisons in particular. In the final section he critically discusses two sets of myths about Canada's experience with universal health insurance: those regarding the desirability of the Canadian system itself and those questioning the transplantability (adaptability) of the model to the United States.

Verán ustedes las chozas más humildes. El discurso de pobreza en la diplomacia pública cardenista dirigida a Estados Unidos

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-281
Author(s):  
Sylvia Dümmer Scheel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
Lazaro Cardenas ◽  
The New Deal

El artículo analiza la diplomacia pública del gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas centrándose en su opción por publicitar la pobreza nacional en el extranjero, especialmente en Estados Unidos. Se plantea que se trató de una estrategia inédita, que accedió a poner en riesgo el “prestigio nacional” con el fin de justificar ante la opinión pública estadounidense la necesidad de implementar las reformas contenidas en el Plan Sexenal. Aprovechando la inusual empatía hacia los pobres en tiempos del New Deal, se construyó una imagen específica de pobreza que fuera higiénica y redimible. Ésta, sin embargo, no generó consenso entre los mexicanos. This article analyzes the public diplomacy of the government of Lázaro Cárdenas, focusing on the administration’s decision to publicize the nation’s poverty internationally, especially in the United States. This study suggests that this was an unprecedented strategy, putting “national prestige” at risk in order to explain the importance of implementing the reforms contained in the Six Year Plan, in the face of public opinion in the United States. Taking advantage of the increased empathy felt towards the poor during the New Deal, a specific image of hygienic and redeemable poverty was constructed. However, this strategy did not generate agreement among Mexicans.

Comparison and analysis of the fda approved orphane drugs registerand the vital and essential drugs list of the Russian Federation

2020 ◽  
pp. 4-16
Author(s):  
D.S. Yurochkin ◽  
◽  
A.A. Leshkevich ◽  
Z.M. Golant ◽  
I.A. NarkevichSaint ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Rare Diseases ◽  
Orphan Drugs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Orphan Diseases ◽  
Essential Drugs ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Comparison And Analysis ◽  
The Government

The article presents the results of a comparison of the Orphan Drugs Register approved for use in the United States and the 2020 Vital and Essential Drugs List approved on October 12, 2019 by Order of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 2406-r. The comparison identified 305 international non-proprietary names relating to the main and/or auxiliary therapy for rare diseases. The analysis of the market of drugs included in the Vital and Essential Drugs List, which can be used to treat rare (orphan) diseases in Russia was conducted.

Lawyers as Activists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dorf ◽  
Michael S. Chu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Court Action ◽  
The Government ◽  
Trump Administration

Lawyers played a key role in challenging the Trump administration’s Travel Ban on entry into the United States of nationals from various majority-Muslim nations. Responding to calls from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which were amplified by social media, lawyers responded to the Travel Ban’s chaotic rollout by providing assistance to foreign travelers at airports. Their efforts led to initial court victories, which in turn led the government to soften the Ban somewhat in two superseding executive actions. The lawyers’ work also contributed to the broader resistance to the Trump administration by dramatizing its bigotry, callousness, cruelty, and lawlessness. The efficacy of the lawyers’ resistance to the Travel Ban shows that, contrary to strong claims about the limits of court action, litigation can promote social change. General lessons about lawyer activism in ordinary times are difficult to draw, however, because of the extraordinary threat Trump poses to civil rights and the rule of law.

The Power to be Ethical: Controlling Moral Assemblages in Border Militias

2021 ◽  
pp. 089124162110218
Author(s):  
John R. Parsons
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
Ethical Conflicts ◽  
Moral Landscape ◽  
The Government ◽  
Moral Certainty ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ethical Response

Every year, hundreds of U.S. citizens patrol the Mexican border dressed in camouflage and armed with pistols and assault rifles. Unsanctioned by the government, these militias aim to stop the movement of narcotics into the United States. Recent interest in the anthropology of ethics has focused on how individuals cultivate themselves toward a notion of the ethical. In contrast, within the militias, ethical self-cultivation was absent. I argue the volunteers derived the power to be ethical from the control of the dominant moral assemblage and the construction of an immoral “Other” which provided them the power to define a moral landscape that limited the potential for ethical conflicts. In the article, I discuss two instances Border Watch and its volunteers dismissed disruptions to their moral certainty and confirmed to themselves that their actions were not only the “right” thing to do, but the only ethical response available.

scholarly journals Cost effectiveness analysis of implementing tuberculosis screening among applicants for non-immigrant U.S. work visas

Pneumonia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bisma Ali Sayed ◽  
Drew L. Posey ◽  
Brian Maskery ◽  
La’Marcus T. Wingate ◽  
Martin S. Cetron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Screening Program ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
The United States ◽  
Active Tuberculosis ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Tuberculosis Screening ◽  
Hospitalization Costs ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Background While persons who receive immigrant and refugee visas are screened for active tuberculosis before admission into the United States, nonimmigrant visa applicants (NIVs) are not routinely screened and may enter the United States with infectious tuberculosis. Objectives We evaluated the costs and benefits of expanding pre-departure tuberculosis screening requirements to a subset of NIVs who arrive from a moderate (Mexico) or high (India) incidence tuberculosis country with temporary work visas. Methods We developed a decision tree model to evaluate the program costs and estimate the numbers of active tuberculosis cases that may be diagnosed in the United States in two scenarios: 1) “Screening”: screening and treatment for tuberculosis among NIVs in their home country with recommended U.S. follow-up for NIVs at elevated risk of active tuberculosis; and, 2) “No Screening” in their home country so that cases would be diagnosed passively and treatment occurs after entry into the United States. Costs were assessed from multiple perspectives, including multinational and U.S.-only perspectives. Results Under “Screening” versus “No Screening”, an estimated 179 active tuberculosis cases and 119 hospitalizations would be averted in the United States annually via predeparture treatment. From the U.S.-only perspective, this program would result in annual net cost savings of about $3.75 million. However, rom the multinational perspective, the screening program would cost $151,388 per U.S. case averted for Indian NIVs and $221,088 per U.S. case averted for Mexican NIVs. Conclusion From the U.S.-only perspective, the screening program would result in substantial cost savings in the form of reduced treatment and hospitalization costs. NIVs would incur increased pre-departure screening and treatment costs.

scholarly journals Radio Spectrum Management and RFI in the United States

1991 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 174-175
Author(s):  
R. Marcus Price
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Department Of Defense ◽  
Government Regulation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Radio Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Management ◽  
Federal Communications Commission ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Body

ABSTRACTIn the United States, civil common carrier telecommunications are provided by private companies, not by any agency of the government. Regulation of these services and spectrum management oversight is provided by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an agency of the government. Government telecommunications are operated by individual agencies, e.g. the Department of Defense, under the overall regulation of the Office of Spectrum Management of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a government body separate from the FCC. In bands shared by the civil and government sectors, liaison and coordination is effected between the FCC and the NTIA.

scholarly journals “Wars” on COVID-19 in Slovakia, Russia, and the United States: Securitized Framing and Reframing of Political and Media Communication Around the Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta N. Lukacovic
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Research Question ◽  
The United States ◽  
Frame Element ◽  
Political Factions ◽  
Russian Media ◽  
The Government

This study analyzes securitized discourses and counter narratives that surround the COVID-19 pandemic. Controversial cases of security related political communication, salient media enunciations, and social media reframing are explored through the theoretical lenses of securitization and cascading activation of framing in the contexts of Slovakia, Russia, and the United States. The first research question explores whether and how the frame element of moral evaluation factors into the conversations on the securitization of the pandemic. The analysis tracks the framing process through elite, media, and public levels of communication. The second research question focused on fairly controversial actors— “rogue actors” —such as individuals linked to far-leaning political factions or militias. The proliferation of digital media provides various actors with opportunities to join publicly visible conversations. The analysis demonstrates that the widely differing national contexts offer different trends and degrees in securitization of the pandemic during spring and summer of 2020. The studied rogue actors usually have something to say about the pandemic, and frequently make some reframing attempts based on idiosyncratic evaluations of how normatively appropriate is their government's “war” on COVID-19. In Slovakia, the rogue elite actors at first failed to have an impact but eventually managed to partially contest the dominant frame. Powerful Russian media influencers enjoy some conspiracy theories but prudently avoid direct challenges to the government's frame, and so far only marginal rogue actors openly advance dissenting frames. The polarized political and media environment in the US has shown to create a particularly fertile ground for rogue grassroots movements that utilize online platforms and social media, at times going as far as encouragement of violent acts to oppose the government and its pandemic response policy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document