Medicaid Expansion’s Impact in Texas

Texas is one of twelve states that has chosen not to expand Medicaid, despite having the largest number of uninsured residents in the country. Ninety percent matching financing from the federal government means the state is missing out on not only any benefits to individuals but fiscal benefits to local economies. This policy brief summarizes research on fiscal impacts of Medicaid expansion and the number of Texans who would be eligible for expansion, as well as how much new federal annual spending would be expected if those Texans enrolled in Medicaid. The research was sponsored by the Episcopal Health Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on improving community health in Texas. The full report, “County-Level Projections of Medicaid Expansion’s Impact in Texas,” can be found on their website and includes county-level data, interactive embeddable maps that show potential funding and health insurance coverage for every county in Texas, and complete details about the project’s methods.Episcopal Health Foundatio

Probabilistic Analysis of Predictability in Discrete Event Systems

International audiencePredictability is a key property allowing one to expect in advance the occurrence of a fault in a system based on its observed events. Existing works give a binary answer to the question of knowing whether a system is predictable or not. In this paper, we consider discrete event systems where probabilities of the transitions are available. We show how to take advantage of this information to perform a Markov chain based analysis and extract a variety of probability values that give a finer appreciation of the degree of predictability. This analysis is particularly important in case of non predictable systems. We consider a "light" analysis that focuses only on predictability as well as a "deep" analysis that handles in a uniform framework both predictability and diagnosability

The Effect of Public Insurance Coverage for Childless Adults on Labor Supply

This study provides plausibly causal estimates of the effect of public insurance coverage on the employment of nonelderly, nondisabled adults without dependent children (“childless adults”). We use regression discontinuity and propensity score matching difference-in-differences methods to take advantage of the sudden imposition of an enrollment cap, comparing the labor supply of enrollees to eligible applicants on a waitlist. We find that enrollment into public insurance leads to sizable and statistically meaningful reductions in employment up to at least nine quarters later, with an estimated size of 2–10 percentage points, depending on the model used

Temperature-phased anaerobic waste treatment process

A method of treating a waste stream including the steps of feeding the stream through a thermophilic anaerobic reactor and then a mesophilic anaerobic reactor operated in series

Model-based Decentralized Embedded Diagnosis inside Vehicles: Application to Smart Distance Keeping Function

International audienceAbstract—In this paper, the deployment of a fault diagnosis strategy in the Smart Distance Keeping (SDK) system with a decentralized architecture is presented. The SDK system is an advanced version of the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) system, implemented in a Renault-Volvo Trucks vehicle. The main goal of this work is to analyze measurements, issued from the SDK elements, in order to detect, to localize and to identify some faults that may be produced. Our main contribution is the proposition of a decentralized approach permitting to carry out an on-line diagnosis without computing the global model and to deploy it on several control units. This paper explains the model-based decentralized solution and its application to the embedded diagnosis of the SDK system inside truck with five control units connected via a CAN-bus using ”Hardware In the Loop” (HIL) technique. We also discuss the constraints that must be fulfilled

Europeanization and the Rise of Extremist Parties

The research question addressed by this study is: what is the relationship between Europeanization and the rise of extremist parties? In particular I examine the impact of Europeanization on the rise of extreme right parties in Europe from 1984 to 2006. Europeanization in this paper is defined as a process whereby the transformation of governance at the European level and European integration as a whole has caused distinctive changes in domestic politics. This process of Europeanization is one part of a structure of opportunities for extremist parties (which also include social, economic, and electoral factors). Although this study finds that Europeanization does not have a statistically significant effect it is still an important factor when examining domestic political phenomenon in Europe

Development of Polythiourethane/ZnO-Based Anti-Fouling Materials and Evaluation of the Adhesion of Staphylococcus aureus and Candida glabrata Using Single-Cell Force Spectroscopy

The attachment of bacteria and other microbes to natural and artificial surfaces leads to the development of biofilms, which can further cause nosocomial infections. Thus, an important field of research is the development of new materials capable of preventing the initial adhesion of pathogenic microorganisms. In this work, novel polymer/particle composite materials, based on a polythiourethane (PTU) matrix and either spherical (s-ZnO) or tetrapodal (t-ZnO) shaped ZnO fillers, were developed and characterized with respect to their mechanical, chemical and surface properties. To then evaluate their potential as anti-fouling surfaces, the adhesion of two different pathogenic microorganism species, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida glabrata, was studied using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Our results show that the adhesion of both S. aureus and C. glabrata to PTU and PTU/ZnO is decreased compared to a model surface polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). It was furthermore found that the amount of both s-ZnO and t-ZnO filler had a direct influence on the adhesion of S. aureus, as increasing amounts of ZnO particles resulted in reduced adhesion of the cells. For both microorganisms, material composites with 5 wt.% of t-ZnO particles showed the greatest potential for anti-fouling with significantly decreased adhesion of cells. Altogether, both pathogens exhibit a reduced capacity to adhere to the newly developed nanomaterials used in this study, thus showing their potential for bio-medical applications

What Happens to Texans’ Insurance Coverage When Medicaid and Marketplace Pandemic-Era Policies End?

Policy ReportThe COVID-19 related public health emergency (PHE) led to federal legislation that changed the landscape of Medicaid and Marketplace insurance coverage. Beginning in 2020, policy responses led to increasing Medicaid enrollment due to federal rules preventing Medicaid disenrollment, and increased Marketplace participation through generous subsidies extended to the majority of the working age population without access to employer provided coverage. In this brief, we describe and summarize the implications of the federally declared PHE and federal legislation for health insurance coverage during the 2020-2022 period in Texas at the state and county level, estimate the implications for insurance coverage once the PHE ends, and provide estimated aggregate fiscal impacts. Texas had the nation’s highest uninsurance rate at 18.4% in 2019, but since January 2020, total Texas Medicaid caseload has increased by 41% or 1.6 million people (as of June 2022), and about 750,000 individuals have newly enrolled in Marketplace coverage, likely substantially decreasing the number uninsured. The Medicaid policies have provided a net financial windfall to the state of $3.5 billion since January 2020. With the eventual end of the PHE, our conservative estimates expect that 550,000 to 700,000 individuals will lose Medicaid coverage, increasing the uninsurance rate by at least 2 percentage points or about 10%. Attention to policies and administrative actions that support ongoing insurance enrollment can help ensure that the large gains to insurance coverage achieved during the PHE can be sustained. Policies and administrative actions that would help ensure the historic gains in coverage are maintained include reducing red-tape costs of processing renewals and redeterminations by streamlining eligibility systems (including the use of information already available to the state), using the capacity of managed care and health insurance navigator organizations for outreach and processing, and taking advantage of increased federal matches for Medicaid expansion.Episcopal Health Foundatio