It Costs Nothing to Care: Why We Need to Provide Health Insurance for Undocumented US Residents
By ABRAAR KARAN, MD
The cost of medical service provision in the United States is one of the most palpable strains on the healthcare system, but we must not forget that cost is the sibling of quality and access—without considering the three as such, we will undoubtedly fail to navigate our country’s healthcare quandary. Low quality care inevitably results in the need for more care in the form of readmissions, while lack of access to primary care leads to increases in the utilization of expensive, emergency services. Of particular concern in our country, a growing contributor to cost, and driven by low quality care and...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 30, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Simon Nath Tags: THCB Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
The REVOLUTIONS Framework: A Blueprint for Socially Accountable Medical Education
By: William Ventres, MD, MA, research professor, Institute for Studies in History, Anthropology, and Archeology, University of El Salvador, and Shafik Dharamsi, PhD, professor and associate dean, School of Osteopathic Medicine, University of the Incarnate Word
Several new medical schools are underway in the United States, with more on the horizon. Many more are sprouting up around the world, especially in areas of extreme need, such as Africa.
Commonly, the founding deans and administrators of these new institutions indicate that they are starting their medical schools to help address local disparities in health outcomes....
Source: Academic Medicine Blog - September 14, 2015 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Guest Author Tags: Featured Guest Perspective AM Last Page health disparities health outcomes new medical schools socially accountable medical education Source Type: blogs
Protecting The Women’s Health Movement On A Global Scale
This article is part of a series of blog posts by leaders in health and health care who participated in Spotlight Health from June 25-28, the opening segment of the Aspen Ideas Festival. This year’s theme was Smart Solutions to the World’s Toughest Challenges. Stayed tuned for more.
Recently, I took part in the second annual Spotlight Health at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which gathered an amazing audience and speakers from around the world to talk about the most pressing global health challenges and to propose innovative solutions for these issues. I had the pleasure to share panels and discussions with more than...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 14, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Estefania Palomino Tags: Equity and Disparities Featured Global Health Population Health Public Health Quality Abortion Aspen Ideas Festival Colombia Purvi Patel Reproductive Health Spotlight Health Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Ecuador’s Ambassador Misses the Point: Dollarization
Ecuador’s ambassador to the U.S., Francisco Borja Cevallos, wrote a letter, “Ecuador’s Progress,” which was published in the New York Times on August 8th. Ambassador Borja reviews a number of Ecuador’s recent economic accomplishments. Fine. After all, by Latin American standards, Ecuador has performed well. Indeed, my Misery Index rankings for the region in 2014 show that only Panama, Mexico, and El Salvador performed better than Ecuador did.
What Ambassador Borja failed to mention is the true source of Ecuador’s relative success: dollarization. Yes, Ecuador is dollarized. Ecuador represented a prime example of...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 10, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Immigration and Crime – What the Research Says
Conclusion
Both the Census-data driven studies and macro-level studies find that immigrants are less crime-prone than natives with some small potential exceptions. There are numerous reasons why immigrant criminality is lower than native criminality. One explanation is that immigrants who commit crimes can be deported and thus are punished more for criminal behavior, making them less likely to break the law.
Another explanation is that immigrants self-select for those willing to work rather than those willing to commit crimes. According to this “healthy immigrant thesis,” motivated and ambitious foreigners are ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 14, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
"Deprived" My Foot
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hearing that Greece is being “deprived of fresh Euros” by the ECB, or by the European Commission, or that those bodies are “moving toward cutting off its money supply.” That’s to say nothing of the Greek government’s suggestion that Greece is being “blackmailed” by these authorities.
Such talk seems to suggest that Eurozone members are like so many helpless hatchlings, their outstretched beaks agape in anticipation of the ECB’s regular and solicitous regurgitations of liquid sustenance.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, I’d like to take a stab at putting...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 11, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs
Follow Panama: Dollarize
Most central banks do one thing well: they produce monetary mischief. Indeed, for most emerging market countries, a central bank is a recipe for disaster.
The solution: replace domestic currencies with sound foreign currencies. Panama is a prime example of this type of switch. Panama adopted the U.S. dollar as its official currency in 1904. It is one of the best-performing countries in Latin America (see the accompanying table). In 2014, economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean was a measly 0.8 percent. In contrast, Panama’s growth rate was 6.2 percent. Not surprisingly, it was the only country in Latin America...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 22, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
If Poor Nations Want Economic Convergence and Capital Accumulation, They Need Good Policy
Daniel J. Mitchell
There’s a “convergence” theory in economics that suggests, over time, that “poor nations should catch up with rich nations.”
But in the real world, that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
There’s an interesting and informative article at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank which explores this theory. It asks why most low-income and middle-income nations are not “converging” with countries from the developed world.
…only a few countries have been able to catch up with the high per capita income levels of the developed world and stay there. By American living standards (as...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 31, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
Measuring Misery in Latin America 2014: More Dollarization, Please
Steve H. Hanke
In my misery index, I calculate a ranking for all countries where suitable data exist. My misery index — a simple sum of inflation, lending rates, and unemployment rates, minus year-on-year per capita GDP growth — is used to construct a ranking for 108 countries. The table below is a sub-index of all Latin American countries presented in the world misery index.
A higher score in the misery index means that the country, and its constituents, are more miserable. Indeed, this is a table where you do not want to be first.
Venezuela and Argentina, armed with aggressive socialist policies, end up the ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 9, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
“Give me your tired, your poor…”
The rapid influx of unaccompanied immigrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the last few months has spurred a national conversation regarding the United States’ role in offering refuge to these children, the majority of whom are fleeing widespread gang violence and delinquency in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. A key talking point for some in the debate has become the supposed threat to public health that these children pose.
Pundits and politicians, from city councils to the U.S. Congress, have latched on to the alarmist claim that immigrant children are carrying diseases with t...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - August 1, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Access Advocacy Consumer Health Care Disparities Global Health Policy Politics Publc Health Source Type: blogs
Border Crisis: Fictions v. Facts (Part 2 of “Children from Central America”)
Despite extensive media coverage, there is probably much that you don’t know about the history of the border crisis—and what we can or should do in response. Too often the headlines are designed to stir passions, rather than inform.
At the end of next week, Congress will leave for its five-week August Recess. Between now and then legislators will be debating the issues, and no doubt many of your friends will be taking positions.
Here are the facts you need when weighing what you hear–whether on television or at a neighbor’s barbecue.
Are you aware that since President Obama took office, it has become...
Source: Health Beat - July 26, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Maggie Mahar Tags: unaccompanied children border Border Crisis Central America illegal immigrants Immigration Reform National Guard Obama and border crisis refugees August recess Congress El Salvador Guatemala Honduras rape Vox Source Type: blogs
Children from Central America Surge Across Our Border: Congress Must Now Decide Whether to Change the Immigration Law that George W. Bush Signed in 2008
If you think fertilized eggs are people but refugee kids aren’t, you’re going to have to stop pretending your concerns are religious– Syd’s SoapBox
News reports have been filled with conflicting theories explaining why tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, have been streaming into the U.S. Some observers say that their parents are sending them here, so that they can take advantage of the social services and free education available in the U.S. Others argue that they are not coming here willingly, but that they have been forced to flee gang violence in their hom...
Source: Health Beat - July 18, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Maggie Mahar Tags: Central America children George W. Bush law murder rape refugees Senator Patrick Leahy 2008 law deported El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Source Type: blogs
Mexican Immigration Policy Lowers the Cost of Central American Migration to the US
Alex Nowrasteh
One persistent American complaint about the Mexican government’s opposition to immigration laws like Arizona’s SB-1070 is that Mexico’s immigration policy is far more restrictive than that of the United States or anything proposed in Arizona. In 2010, Representative Ted Poe (R-TX) articulately pointed out the Mexican government’s blatant hypocrisy. Brutal Mexican immigration laws were not only bad policy for Mexico but exposed an absurd level of hypocrisy.
After Representative Poe’s comments, the Mexican government passed a Migratory Act in 2011 that went into effect on November 1, 2012. This law ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 17, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
Nicaraguan Unaccompanied Child Migrants - Where Are They?
Alex Nowrasteh
U.S. policy is equally generous to unaccompanied children (UAC) from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua – but today’s child migrants are not coming from Nicaragua. Explaining why Nicaraguan UAC are not part of the recent surge may help explain why so many are coming from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras - the so-called Northern Triangle.
Nicaragua has low rates of violent crime, gang membership, and fewer family connections to the United States than the Northern Triangle. If U.S. policy was the main reason why there is a sudden surge of UAC, it should also pull UAC...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 15, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
Family Reunification and Other Explanations for the Border Surge of Unaccompanied Children
Conclusion
All three of these theories explain at least part of the sudden increase in UACs in recent years. As more data is made available by the government and more surveys are conducted of current UACs, a more complete picture will unfold and explain why the sudden increase in UACs is occurring. Only then will an effective administrative long term solution be possible. (Source: Cato-at-liberty)
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 25, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
