scholarly journals Solving Medicare’s Fiscal Crisis: An Analysis of Three Policy Options

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Ashley Flint

Health care spending in the United States has increased rapidly over the past several decades. Medicare, the largest public health insurance program in the US, is a key component of these growing costs. While Medicare financing is expected to be stable over the next decade, the long-term solvency will be difficult to sustain absent congressional action. This paper analyzes three policy options for Congress to consider in addressing the problem of rapid cost growth in the Medicare program.

Author(s):  
Monica Gaughan

The theoretical perspective of Bozeman’s publicness work is used to frame a two-part case study of the health insurance system in the United States. It begins with a historical overview of the incremental changes to the system over the past 70 years, illustrating how competing economic and political authorities have combined to create a uniquely expensive and poorly performing system. The empirical lens then focuses on one component of the US system, the Medicare program for the elderly and disabled. It shows how a fully public system has become increasingly privatized through a series of policy reforms starting in the 1990s. This analysis is timely in light of the recent Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the continuing efforts of the US Congress to limit the growth of entitlements such as Medicare.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 3191-3208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao He ◽  
Xin-Zhong Liang ◽  
Chao Sun ◽  
Zhining Tao ◽  
Daniel Q. Tong

Abstract. We investigated the ozone pollution trend and its sensitivity to key precursors from 1990 to 2015 in the United States using long-term EPA Air Quality System (AQS) observations and mesoscale simulations. The modeling system, a coupled regional climate–air quality model (CWRF-CMAQ; Climate-Weather Research Forecast and the Community Multiscale Air Quality), captured well the summer surface ozone pollution during the past decades, having a mean slope of linear regression with AQS observations of ∼0.75. While the AQS network has limited spatial coverage and measures only a few key chemical species, CWRF-CMAQ provides comprehensive simulations to enable a more rigorous study of the change in ozone pollution and chemical sensitivity. Analysis of seasonal variations and diurnal cycle of ozone observations showed that peak ozone concentrations in the summer afternoon decreased ubiquitously across the United States, up to 0.5 ppbv yr−1 in major non-attainment areas such as Los Angeles, while concentrations at certain hours such as the early morning and late afternoon increased slightly. Consistent with the AQS observations, CMAQ simulated a similar decreasing trend of peak ozone concentrations in the afternoon, up to 0.4 ppbv yr−1, and increasing ozone trends in the early morning and late afternoon. A monotonically decreasing trend (up to 0.5 ppbv yr−1) in the odd oxygen (Ox=O3+NO2) concentrations are simulated by CMAQ at all daytime hours. This result suggests that the increased ozone in the early morning and late afternoon was likely caused by reduced NO–O3 titration, driven by continuous anthropogenic NOx emission reductions in the past decades. Furthermore, the CMAQ simulations revealed a shift in chemical regimes of ozone photochemical production. From 1990 to 2015, surface ozone production in some metropolitan areas, such as Baltimore, has transited from a VOC-sensitive environment (>50 % probability) to a NOx-sensitive regime. Our results demonstrated that the long-term CWRF-CMAQ simulations can provide detailed information of the ozone chemistry evolution under a changing climate and may partially explain the US ozone pollution responses to regional and national regulations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 226 ◽  
pp. 538-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Garver

The rapid growth of China's power combined with the intensification of rivalry between the United States and China over the past several years has triggered a re-thinking of US policy toward the rise of China. America's traditional policy of supporting China's rise as a rich, strong and peaceful country in hopes of building a cooperative and generally friendly relation with China over the long term, is being called into question. Critics charge that that traditional policy is backfiring, playing into Beijing's wiles and producing a China so powerful it could well become the greatest challenge to the United States in its history. Other analysts offer a less jaundiced view of China, but all manifest apprehension over whether China will use its growing power to challenge the US. Earlier iterations of a similar debate have come and gone, but the closing distance between US and Chinese military, economic and technological power has brought this debate much closer to the US mainstream. Indeed, one or two of these books may represent the mainstream of US thinking. Together, the four books lay out the topography of the US debate.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo

By identifying two general issues in recent history textbook controversies worldwide (oblivion and inclusion), this article examines understandings of the United States in Mexico's history textbooks (especially those of 1992) as a means to test the limits of historical imagining between U. S. and Mexican historiographies. Drawing lessons from recent European and Indian historiographical debates, the article argues that many of the historical clashes between the nationalist historiographies of Mexico and the United States could be taught as series of unsolved enigmas, ironies, and contradictions in the midst of a central enigma: the persistence of two nationalist historiographies incapable of contemplating their common ground. The article maintains that lo mexicano has been a constant part of the past and present of the US, and lo gringo an intrinsic component of Mexico's history. The di erences in their historical tracks have been made into monumental ontological oppositions, which are in fact two tracks—often overlapping—of the same and shared con ictual and complex experience.


Author(s):  
Gilles Duruflé ◽  
Thomas Hellmann ◽  
Karen Wilson

This chapter examines the challenge for entrepreneurial companies of going beyond the start-up phase and growing into large successful companies. We examine the long-term financing of these so-called scale-up companies, focusing on the United States, Europe, and Canada. The chapter first provides a conceptual framework for understanding the challenges of financing scale-ups. It emphasizes the need for investors with deep pockets, for smart money, for investor networks, and for patient money. It then shows some data about the various aspects of financing scale-ups in the United States, Europe, and Canada, showing how Europe and Canada are lagging behind the US relatively more at the scale-up than the start-up stage. Finally, the chapter raises the question of long-term public policies for supporting the creation of a better scale-up environment.


Author(s):  
Abraham L. Newman ◽  
Elliot Posner

Chapter 6 examines the long-term effects of international soft law on policy in the United States since 2008. The extent and type of post-crisis US cooperation with foreign jurisdictions have varied considerably with far-reaching ramifications for international financial markets. Focusing on the international interaction of reforms in banking and derivatives, the chapter uses the book’s approach to understand US regulation in the wake of the Great Recession. The authors attribute seemingly random variation in the US relationship to foreign regulation and markets to differences in pre-crisis international soft law. Here, the existence (or absence) of robust soft law and standard-creating institutions determines the resources available to policy entrepreneurs as well as their orientation and attitudes toward international cooperation. Soft law plays a central role in the evolution of US regulatory reform and its interface with the rest of the world.


Author(s):  
Gayathri S. Kumar ◽  
Jenna A. Beeler ◽  
Emma E. Seagle ◽  
Emily S. Jentes

AbstractSeveral studies describe the health of recently resettled refugee populations in the US beyond the first 8 months after arrival. This review summarizes the results of these studies. Scientific articles from five databases published from January 2008 to March 2019 were reviewed. Articles were included if study subjects included any of the top five US resettlement populations during 2008–2018 and if data described long-term physical health outcomes beyond the first 8 months after arrival in the US. Thirty-three studies met the inclusion criteria (1.5%). Refugee adults had higher odds of having a chronic disease compared with non-refugee immigrant adults, and an increased risk for diabetes compared with US-born controls. The most commonly reported chronic diseases among Iraqi, Somali, and Bhutanese refugee adults included diabetes and hypertension. Clinicians should consider screening and evaluating for chronic conditions in the early resettlement period. Further evaluations can build a more comprehensive, long-term health profile of resettled refugees to inform public health practice.


Circulation ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 137 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dianjianyi Sun ◽  
Tao Zhou ◽  
Xiang Li ◽  
Yoriko Heianza ◽  
Xiaoyun Shang ◽  
...  

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been the number one cause of death and disability in the US and globally for decades, and its comorbidity complicates the management of CVD. However, little is known about the secular trend of CVD comorbidities in national representative populations in the last 20 years. Methods: Prevalence of CVD and nine major chronic comorbidities was estimated using data from 1,324,214 adults aged 18 years and older in the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) from 1997 through 2016, with age-standardized to the U.S. population in the year 2000. Results: CVD prevalence in the US adult population significantly declined in the past twenty years (from 6.6% in 1997 to 5.9% in 2016, P trend <0.01in Figure a). And such trend was shown in women and whites (P trend <0.01), but not in men and blacks (P trend >0.05). We ranked the nine major chronic comorbidities (high to low) in the CVD patients (Figure b.), including (1) hypertension, (2) respiratory conditions, (3) nervous system conditions, (4) digestive conditions, (5) diabetes, (6) cancer, (7) genitourinary conditions, (8) circulatory conditions, and (9) endocrine/nutritional/metabolic conditions. From 1997 to 2016, the prevalence of CVD comorbidities including hypertension (38.8% to 50.2%), digestive conditions (17.0% to 27.1%), diabetes (10.0% to 19.2%), cancer (9.4% to 12.8%), and genitourinary conditions (4.1% to 5.2%) continuingly increased (all P trend <0.01), while respiratory conditions declined (35.9% to 27.6%, P trend <0.01). Similar trends of CVD comorbidities were observed among subgroups stratified by gender or by race. Conclusions: CVD prevalence in the U.S. adults have declined significantly in the past two decades, but rates of CVD comorbidities including hypertension, digestive conditions, diabetes, cancer, and genitourinary conditions increased substantially.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christen Mucher

Before American History examines the project of settler nationalism from the 1780s to the 1840s in two of North America’s republics—the US and Mexico—through an analysis of historical knowledge production. As the US and Mexico transformed from European colonies into independent republics—and before war scarred them both—antiquarians and historians compiled and interpreted archives meant to document America’s Indigenous pasts. Before American History approaches two iconic imaginings of the past—the carved Sun Stone and the mounded earthwork—as archives of nationalist power and Indigenous dispossession as well as objects that are, at their material base, Indigenously-produced but settler-controlled and settler-interpreted. In making the connection between earthworks built by an allegedly vanished people merely peripheral to US citizens and the literal touchstone of Mexicans’ history, Before American History details how Mexican and US nationalists created national histories out of Indigenous pasts and thereby wrote Indigenous pasts out of their national histories and out of national lands. It uncovers how the manipulation of Indigenous pasts and (mis)interpretations of “American Antiquities”—Indigenous documents, objects and monuments—served the purposes of a trans-imperial/transnational network of creole ruling elites, first in New Spain and British America, and later in Mexico and the United States, as they struggled to construct new political, geographic, and historical orders.


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