Employer-Sponsored Insurance Under Health Reform: Reports of Its Demise Are Premature

Compares estimated changes in employer health coverage and total spending by firm size; offer rates among small firms, and premium trends under the 2010 healthcare reform law and without reform. Discusses factors that will keep ESI coverage rates steady

Why the Individual Mandate Matters

Compares estimates of coverage rates for the nonelderly and of spending by government, employers, individuals, and the overall health system under the 2010 healthcare reform law and estimates under a scenario in which the individual mandate is eliminated

The Effects of Large Premium Increases on Individuals, Families, and Small Businesses

Estimates the impact of rising insurance premiums on coverage, costs, adverse selection, public spending, and small employers' offers of insurance under three scenarios. Compares projections for loss of coverage by age, income, and type of insurance

Premium and Cost-Sharing Subsidies Under Health Reform: Implications for Coverage, Costs and Affordability

Using the Urban Institute's simulation model, estimates household financial burdens under House and Senate healthcare reform bills. Compares coverage and affordability under various reform options by source of coverage, income, healthcare needs, and age

Health Care Spending Under Reform: Less Uncompensated Care and Lower Costs to Small Employers

Estimates the implications of the House reform bill passed in 2009 for coverage distribution, cost of uncompensated care for the uninsured, and employers' net costs by firm size, and individual and family spending by income. Considers budgetary benefits

Age Rating Under Comprehensive Health Care Reform: Implications for Coverage, Costs and Household Financial Burdens

Quantifies the implications of policy options on the practice of varying insurance premiums by age for the government, employers, and families of different ages, incomes, and sizes. Examines coverage, aggregate and household costs, and non-group premiums

The Identity of American Catholic Higher Education: A Historical Overview

American Catholic higher education has faced and overcome challenges, both from American higher education and Vatican officials, in its long and rich history. Georgetown College’s founding in 1789 was the first of several Catholic higher education institutions created in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The 20th century brought the challenges of accrediting agencies and mixed communication with The Vatican, including Pope John Paul II’s (1990) Ex Corde Ecclesiae. This document attempts to clarify the nature of a Catholic institution’s identity

Autonomous Wildfire Detection System

According to the National Fire Protection Association Journal, federal wildfire suppression costs in the United States have risen from an annual average of about $425 million from 1985 to 1999 up to$1.6 billion from 2000 to 2019. On average, more than 200,000 acres in the United States are burned per year due to wildfires, with more than 700,000 acres burned in 2020 alone. With the risk of wildfire ever rising, there is a need for better early detection of remote wildfires, as existing methods often include long delays like satellites or rely on human lookout towers. The objective is to develop an early, remote wildfire detection device that covers a wide range and quickly transmits warnings to appropriate personnel. The device will be wireless and self-powered as to facilitate deployment in remote areas. In practice there would be a network of these detection units communicating back to a gateway in order to cover a wide area of land in order to help catch wildfires early

Nationwide shift to grass-fed beef requires larger cattle population

In the US, there is growing interest in producing more beef from cattle raised in exclusively pasture-based systems, rather than grain-finishing feedlot systems, due to the perception that it is more environmentally sustainable. Yet existing understanding of the environmental impacts of exclusively pasture-based systems is limited by a lack of clarity about cattle herd dynamics. We model a nationwide transition from grain- to grass-finishing systems using demographics of present-day beef cattle. In order to produce the same quantity of beef as the present-day system, we find that a nationwide shift to exclusively grass-fed beef would require increasing the national cattle herd from 77 to 100 million cattle, an increase of 30%. We also find that the current pastureland grass resource can support only 27% of the current beef supply (27 million cattle), an amount 30% smaller than prior estimates. If grass-fed systems include cropland-raised forage, a definition that conforms to typical grass-fed certifications, these supplemental feeds can support an additional 34 million cattle to produce up to 61% of the current beef supply. Given the potential of forage feed croplands to compete with human food crop production, more work is required to determine optimal agricultural land uses. Future US demand in an entirely grass-and forage-raised beef scenario can only be met domestically if beef consumption is reduced, due to higher prices or other factors. If beef consumption is not reduced and is instead satisfied by greater imports of grass-fed beef, a switch to purely grass-fed systems would likely result in higher environmental costs, including higher overall methane emissions. Thus, only reductions in beef consumption can guarantee reductions in the environmental impact of US food systems.ISSN:1748-9326ISSN:1748-931

To elect or to appoint? Bias, information, and responsiveness of bureaucrats and politicians

In this paper, we address empirically the trade-offs involved in choosing between bureaucrats and politicians. In order to do this, we map institutions of selection and retention of public officials to the type of public officials they induce. We do this by specifying a collective decision-making model, and exploiting its equilibrium information to obtain estimates of the unobservable types. We focus on criminal decisions across US states' Supreme Courts. We find that justices that are shielded from voters' influence (“bureaucrats”) on average (i) have better information, (ii) are more likely to change their preconceived opinions about a case, and (iii) are more effective (make less mistakes) than their elected counterparts (“politicians”). We evaluate how performance would change if the courts replaced majority rule with unanimity rule