No More State Aid
Chris EdwardsIn response to the crisis, federal policymakers have passed a series of aid packages providing hundreds of billions of dollars to state and local governments. Legislation,here andhere, has provided $150 billion in flexible aid to the states plus more than $280 billion in other state and local aid for health care, education, housing, transit, food stamps, and other programs.Congress and the administration are working on yet another bailout package. TheHouse plan includes $1.1 trillion further aid to the states, while theSenate plan includes $105 billion for schools and colleges.Federal aid to the states is ha...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 31, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
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While the country is reeling from more than 130,000 COVID-19 deaths and the most significant recession since the Great Depression, several Republican-led states and the Justice Department are making the case for invalidating the Affordable Care Act (ACA), taking health insurance away from 27 million Americans and leaving at least 54 million with preexisting health conditions potentially uninsurable.
(Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog)
Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog - July 16, 2020 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Sara R. Collins, Elizabeth Fowler Source Type: blogs
U.S. Leaders (Still) Learning the Wrong Lessons from China ’s Rise
Daniel J. IkensonWhile collecting materials to offer a retort to arguments favoring robust U.S. industrial policy, I came across anarticle I wrote on the subject published inChina-U.S. Focus on March 15, 2011. I am struck by how much of that piece is still relevant to today ’s debate. The article also notes that perceptions developed during the Great Recession (particularly among U.S. policymakers) were the catalyst for the steady decline in the U.S.-China relationship during the Obama administration, which accelerated with rise of Xi Jinping and the election of Dona ld Trump (a chronology covered in more detail inthis a...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 7, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Daniel J. Ikenson Source Type: blogs
The New Deal and Recovery, Part 4: FDR ’s Fed
George Selgin“Roosevelt had conducted an active monetary and fiscal program of recovery…working along lines suggested by Keynes.” Eric Rauchway,The Money Makers, p. xvi.As we saw inthe last installment to this series, New Deal fiscal policies did little to help the U.S. economy recover from the Great Depression. Yet the U.S. did see substantial gains in output and employment between 1933 and 1937. If those gains weren ’t a result of fiscal stimulus, what caused them? And just what did New Deal policies have to do with these causes?A Money ‐Fueled RecoveryThe answer to the first question, according to most eco...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 6, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs
Coming out of Covid lockdown, I don ’ t think so …
Fundamentally, we are still riding (just) the first wave of the global Covid-19 pandemic. If there are sudden spikes now, that’s still part of the first wave. Nothing has changed for the virus except that some people have been avoiding contact with other people, so the rates of infection in some places have slowed giving health services a bit of space to mop up and treated those seriously ill with the virus. But, at the time of writing half a million people, at least, have died from Covid-19.
I don’t really know how I feel about this coming out of lockdown, to be honest. I suspect that having asthma and being i...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - July 2, 2020 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
More Americans Want to Increase Immigration Than Reduce It
Alex NowrastehGallup produces the longest ‐running poll on immigration going back to1965. Since then, it has asked the same question:Thinking now about immigrants — that is, people who come from other countries to live here in the United States, in your view, should immigration be kept at its present level, increased or decreased?For the first time in the poll ’s history, more Americans want to increase immigration than decrease it. The margin of error for Gallup’s poll is +/- 4 percent, so the “present level” and “increased” position are about the same for all intents and purposes. Meanwhile, the “de...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 1, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
TikTok Teen ’ s Time
By KIM BELLARD
I knew about TikTok, but not “TikTok Teens.” I was vaguely aware of K-Pop, but I didn’t know its fans had common interests beyond, you know, K-Pop. I’d been tracking Gen X and Millennials but hadn’t really focused on Gen Z. It turns out that these overlapping groups are quite socially aware and are starting to make their influence felt.
I can’t wait for them to pay more attention to health care.
This is the generation that has grown up during/in the wake of 9/11, the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, the 2008 rece...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 23, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health Policy Kim Bellard public health tiktok tiktok teens Source Type: blogs
Foreign Worker Programs Trump ’s Order Targets Create Jobs for Americans
David J. BierPresident Trumpannounced yesterday that he would suspend several foreign worker programs for the remainder of the year. These visas include the J-1, L-1, H-1B, and H-2B. The president claims that the suspensions are necessary to protect jobs for Americans, but the fact is that these programs create jobs for Americans, and eliminating them will undermine job growth, hurting the recovery.The most important point is that all immigrant workers create jobs because they participate in the economy not just as workers but also as consumers. So when new workers enter the economy, they increase both the supply of worker...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 23, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
President Trump ’s Cancellation of Many Work Visas Will Hurt the American Economy
Alex NowrastehThe Trump Administration has just issued anproclamation that will restrict the issuance of many temporary economic migrant work visas. The proclamation will go into effect on June 24 at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time. The visas affected are the H-1B visa for skilled temporary migrant workers, theH-2B visa for temporary lower ‐skilled non‐agricultural employment, mostJ visas, andL visas for intracompany transfers.Trump ’s proclamation justifies the restriction on new visas by citing the recession caused by COVID-19 and the government’s response to it so far. Like most of the other pol...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 23, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
H-1B Workers Are Helping to Save Jobs During the COVID-19 Recession
Alex NowrastehThe large increase in unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic, caused byindividual changes in behavior andgovernment policies, have prompted the Trump administration to consider suspending many temporary work visa programs. Among those visa programs on the chopping block is theH-1B visa for skilled foreign workers. In 2019,two ‐thirds of migrants received the H-1B visa to work in computer ‐related occupations with many of them employed in the information technology (IT) sector. IT is an important source ofproductivity growth, but it became more obvious how important it was for saving employment op...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 19, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
Local Governments and the Recession
Chris EdwardsIn response to the crisis, Congress and the Federal Reserve have provided cities and states with hundreds of billions of dollars in aid. But there are calls for more from theFed chief, lobby groups such as theNational League of Cities, and Democrats andsome Republicans on Capitol Hill.News articles are whipping up fears of an apocalypse unless Congress passes another state ‐local aid package.Politicoclaims that states and cities are “slashing” services with “severe” cuts, whileEducation Weekworries about “draconian” cuts to schools. TheNew York Timessays that the virus is “ravaging” state ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 19, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Global mental health in the time of COVID-19
Just months ago, who could have imagined that the world would be looking down the barrel of a spiraling health crisis and economic recession unlike any witnessed in our lifetime? Now, in a world gripped by the fear of a marauding virus, mental health is emerging as a key concern.
Diverse pathways to poorer mental health
The reaction of the media and governments to the epidemic served to fuel anxiety. The dramatic way the term “pandemic” was announced by the WHO after weeks of watching the epidemic unfolding around the world was a hair-raising moment. Apocalyptic messaging about millions of dead bodies littering our cit...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - June 16, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Vikram Patel, MBBS, PhD Tags: Health Health care disparities Health trends Mental Health Source Type: blogs
The New Deal and Recovery, Part 1: The Record
George Selgin“Under the New Deal, the US economy grew at rapid rates, even for an economy in recovery.” (Eric Rauchway,The Money Makers, p. 100.)Before I start telling you what “the New Deal” did and didn’t do, I had better make clear what I mean by the phrase, if only to assure you that my meaning is perfectly conventional. LikeWikipedia, when I say “the New Deal,” I mean the “series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939.” I point this out because some claims made about the New De...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 16, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs
The Macro View – Health, Economics, and Politics and the Big Picture. What I Am Watching Here And Abroad.
June 11, 2020 Edition. ----- It would be hard to imagine more unwinding of the coherence and polity of the US than we have seen in the last week or two. The country appears to be imploding right now and their President is encouraging the collapse. What an awful scenario that we see evolving … In the UK it is hard to know what is happening with COVID-19 as to whether they are winning or losing. With that it is clear Brazil is loosing awfully! In Australia the pandemic appears to be under control for now. We only have to wonder after the demos if that will still be the case. 2-3 weeks. We are sure at some risk. Other wise ...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - June 10, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
