The Effects of the Massachusetts Health Reform on Financial Distress

A major benefit of health insurance coverage is that it protects the insured from unexpected medical costs that may devastate their personal finances. In this paper, we use detailed credit report information on a large panel of individuals to examine the effect of a major health care reform in Massachusetts in 2006 on a broad set of financial outcomes. The Massachusetts model served as the basis for the Affordable Care Act and allows us to examine the effect of coverage on financial outcomes for the entire population of the uninsured, not just those with very low incomes. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in the impact of the reform across counties and age groups using levels of pre-reform insurance coverage as a measure of the potential effect of the reform. We find that the reform reduced the total amount of debt that was past due, the fraction of all debt that was past due, improved credit scores and reduced personal bankruptcies. We also find suggestive evidence that the reform lowered the total amount of debt and decreased third party collections. The effects are most pronounced for individuals who had limited access to credit markets before the reform. These results show that health care reform has implications that extend well beyond the health and health care utilization of those who gain insurance coverage

Should Subsidies to Urban Passenger Transport be Increased? A Spatial CGE Analysis for a German Metropolitan Area

In many countries passenger transport is significantly subsidized in a variety of ways for various reasons. The objective of this paper is to examine efficiency, distributional, environmental (CO2 emissions) and spatial effects of increasing different kinds of passenger transport subsidies discriminating between household types, travel purposes and travel modes. The effects are calculated by applying a numerical spatial general equilibrium approach calibrated to an average German metropolitan area. In extension to most studies focusing on only one kind of subsidy, we compare the effects of different transport subsidies within the same unified framework that allows to account for two features not yet considered simultaneously in studies on transport subsidies: endogenous labor supply and location decisions. Furthermore, congestion, travel mode choice, travel related CO2 emissions and institutional details regarding the tax system in Germany are taken into account. The results suggest that optimal subsidy levels are either small or even zero. While subsidizing public transport is welfare enhancing, subsidies to urban road traffic reduce aggregate urban welfare. Concerning the latter it is shown that making investments in urban road infrastructure capacity or reducing gasoline taxes may even be harmful to residents using predominantly automobile. In contrast, pure commuting subsidies hardly affect aggregate urban welfare, but distributional effects are substantial. All policies cause suburbanization of city residents and (except for subsidizing public transport) contribute to urban sprawl by raising the spatial imbalance of residences and jobs but the effect is relatively small. In addition, the policies induce a very differentiated pattern regarding distributional effects, benefits of landowners and environmental effects

Acupuncture heroin detoxification: A single-blind clinical trial

Abstract -The increasing prevalence of HIV infection among injection drug users mandate

Pathophysiological concentrations of glucose promote oxidative modification of lowdensity lipoprotein by a superoxide-dependent pathway.

Abstract Oxidized lipoproteins may be important in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Because diabetic subjects are particularly prone to vascular disease, and glucose autoxidation and protein glycation generate reactive oxygen species, we explored the role of glucose in lipoprotein oxidation. Glucose enhanced low density lipoprotein (LDL) oxidation at concentrations seen in the diabetic state. Conjugated dienes, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, electrophoretic mobility, and degradation by macrophages were increased when LDL was modified in the presence of glucose. In contrast, free lysine groups and fibroblast degradation were reduced. Although loss of reactive lysine groups could be due to either oxidative modification or nonenzymatic glycation of apolipoprotein B-100, inhibition of lipid peroxidation by the metal chelator, diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid, blocked the changes in free lysines. Thus, glycation of lysine residues is unlikely to account for the alterations in macrophage and fibroblast uptake of LDL modified in the presence of glucose. Glucose-mediated enhancement of LDL oxidation was partially blocked by superoxide dismutase and nearly completely inhibited by butylated hydroxytoluene. These findings indicate that glucose enhances LDL lipid peroxidation by an oxidative pathway involving superoxide and raise the possibility that the chronic hyperglycemia of diabetes accelerates lipoprotein oxidation, thereby promoting diabetic vascular disease. (J. Clin. Invest. 1994. 94:771-778.

Backward position shift in apparent motion

We investigated the perceived position of visual targets in apparent motion. A disc moved horizontally through three positions from À108 to þ108 in the far periphery (208 above fixation), generating a compelling impression of apparent motion. In the first experiment, observers compared the position of the middle of the three discs to a subsequently presented reference. Unexpectedly, observers judged its position to be shifted backward, in the direction opposite that of the motion. We then tested the middle disc in sequences of 3, 5, and 7 discs, each covering the same spatial and temporal extents (similar speeds). The backwards shift was only found for the three-disc sequence. With the extra discs approaching more continuous motion, the perceived shift was in the same direction as the apparent motion. Finally, using a localization task with constant static references, we measured the position shifts of all the disc locations for two-disc, three-disc and four-disc apparent motion sequences. The backward shift was found for the second location of all sequences. We suggest that the backward shift of the second element along an apparent motion path is due to an attraction effect induced by the initial point of the motion

Variety Gains of Trade Integration in a Heterogeneous Firm Model

The present paper studies the variety gains of regional integration in Asia. Applying a heterogenous firm model we are able to assess the gains arising from the increased product and consumer choice, which is not possible in trade models with representative firms. We analyse the impacts of the ongoing trade liberalisation in South East Asia in three scenarios: CIFTA, ASEAN+3, and ASEAN+6. We find that the gains from trade integration are substantial, particularly in the multilateral liberalisation scenario ASEAN+6. A multilateral reduction of fixed and variable trade barriers by 15 percent results in a trade growth of 34 percent, which due to the additional extensive margin of trade, is larger than in trade models with representative firms. Similarly, due to the additional gains from variety growth, the welfare gains of trade integration in Asia are up to 9 percent higher than trade models with representative firms would predict