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111. Is the Food Model Changing?

Author:
Martin Kenney
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Consumers offered mediocre quality food – Supersized with chemicals, sugar and lipids Provide ever more highly engineered foods – e.g., Pork with Omega-3 engineered into it Ignore consumer's desires for safety such as BSE testing Government run for the food and chemical industry -- little regulation, low standards – US government welfare keeps this alive.
Topic:
Government, Health, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States

112. Mad Cows and Ailing Hens: The Transatlantic Relationship and Livestock Diseases

Author:
Kate O'Neill
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper examines how the emergence and spread of animal diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or “mad cow disease”) or avian influenza have shaped the dynamics of transatlantic trade in live animals and meat products. It then compares the responses of the US and the EU, respectively, to looming, potentially long-term threats of epidemics to human and animal health, focusing particularly on recent outbreaks BSE and avian flu. It documents what appears to be a shift away from a sole reliance on trade embargoes to protect animal and public health from disease outbreaks to deeper, institutional responses on the part of the US and EU respectively. However, while it appears that the EU is learning from the US public health establishment, there is little evidence of transatlantic cooperation in this area.
Topic:
International Relations, Disaster Relief, Economics, and Health
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

113. Treatment of Coronary Artery Disease: What Does Rationing Do?

Author:
Henry J. Aaron
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Providing all beneficial care to those who need it is rapidly becoming unaffordable, even for a nation as rich as the United States. The highly decentralized U.S. payment system is unique in its lack of effective levers for limiting health care spending, and managed care has largely been ineffective. A different solution, considered extreme by many in the United States, is rationing. The need to ration healthcare has long been a reality in the United Kingdom where healthcare spending must be covered by an annual budget accounting for only 7.6 percent of GDP—about half the U.S. share. These decisions are perhaps most difficult in regards to treatment of conditions that are literally matters of life or death, such as coronary artery disease. This brief examines reasons for the differences in treatment and outcomes in the United States and Britain, and discusses the difficulty of rationing care in the United States, where a unique payment system now uses income from those with health insurance to cover the medical costs of the uninsured.
Topic:
Health
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, and Europe

114. Treatment of Coronary Artery Disease: What Does Rationing Do?

Author:
Henry J. Aaron
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Providing all beneficial care to those who need it is rapidly becoming unaffordable, even for a nation as rich as the United States. The highly decentralized U.S. payment system is unique in its lack of effective levers for limiting health care spending, and managed care has largely been ineffective. A different solution, considered extreme by many in the United States, is rationing.
Topic:
Economics, Health, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States

115. Health Care Rationing: What it Means

Author:
Henry J. Aaron
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The United States spends more on health care than any other nation. In 2003, medical spending made up more than 15 percent of U.S. GDP, and if historical trends persist, this share will climb to more than one-third of GDP by 2040. With medical technology advancing at an ever-increasing rate, the potential for spending on procedures not worth their costs is growing. But there are few good ideas for reining in medical costs without hurting patients.
Topic:
Economics, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States

116. Race, Ethnicity, and Health

Author:
Kenneth Finegold and Laura Wherry
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
The creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), combined with many states' decisions to expand Medicaid eligibility, increased public coverage of black, white, and Hispanic children between 1997 and 2002. Uninsurance rates fell among children in low-income white, black, and Hispanic families, remained constant among white and black children in higher-income families, and increased among Hispanic children in higher-income families. The health status of children, as reported by their parents, was stable for blacks, whites, and Hispanics, except for a decline in health among higher-income Hispanic children.
Topic:
Demographics, Health, Human Welfare, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States

117. Health Insurance Coverage of Children in Mixed-Status Immigrant Families

Author:
Randy Capps, Genevieve M. Kenney, and Michael E. Fix
Publication Date:
11-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
Public health insurance coverage increased—and rates of uninsurance decreased—between 1999 and 2002 among two groups of low-income, U.S. citizen children: those with parents who are native or naturalized U.S. citizens and those with at least one immigrant parent who is not a U.S. citizen (referred to as mixed-status families). The improvements followed efforts on the part of the states and the federal government to expand coverage of children under Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and the introduction of policies directed at improving Medicaid and SCHIP access for immigrant and non-English-speaking families. Nonetheless, more than one in five citizen children in low-income mixed-status families remained uninsured in 2002—a rate 74 percent higher than that of children with citizen parents.
Topic:
Health, Human Welfare, Migration, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States

118. Russian Health and Social Welfare: Limited Progress

Author:
Judyth L. Twigg
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
It has become routine for Russian policy makers to characterize their various health and social problems—rising male mortality, HIV/AIDS, illegal drug use, even pension system reform—as threats to the stability and national security of their country. Russia's importance to American national interests was thrown in sharp relief by the events of September 11 and their aftermath. A stable, prosperous Russia is a crucial partner in the war on terrorism. The fact that so many of Russia's health and social indicators remain stagnant or in decline, despite limited improvement along some dimensions, should therefore be troubling to the United States.
Topic:
Government, Health, Human Welfare, Science and Technology, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and Asia

119. Composite Indexes of Leading, Coincident, and Lagging Indicators: September 1999

Publication Date:
09-1999
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Conference Board
Abstract:
The leading index decreased 0.1 percent, the coincident index decreased 0.2 percent, and the lagging index increased 0.4 percent in September. This report merits careful interpretation, but does not change general conclusions drawn from previous releases, which show the economy is in good health: The coincident indicators point to GDP rising in the 4th quarter of 1999. The leading indicators point to a continuation of the expansion through early 2000. Cyclical imbalances and related economic instability problems must be monitored for future increases.
Topic:
Economics and Health
Political Geography:
United States

120. Reproductive Health: New Directions and New Technologies

Author:
Rodney W. Nichols, Susan U. Raymond, Margaret Catley-Carlson, Allan Rosenfield, and Michael E. Kafrissen
Publication Date:
09-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
New York Academy of Sciences
Abstract:
Surely one of the oddest of all recent debates is well underway in the United States. At issue is whether, in the year 2000 the population of the nation should be counted nose-by-nose, on foot, by an phalanx of freshly minted, part-time, house visiting census-takers (who evidently missed 8.4 million residents the last time they tried in 1990) or whether a technique should be used that would employ statistical sampling methods to reach census conclusions. The majority of those most heatedly engaged in the public debate probably did not even like math in school; many would not be able to explain the likely accuracy of either method. But debate they do, in the time-honored tradition of policy making in democracies—largely because the coveted prize is not merely an accurate count of the number of individuals, but more importantly an advantageous decision on the number of voters in electoral districts.
Topic:
Government, Health, Politics, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States