Mandated Health Insurance Benefits and the Utilization and Outcomes of Infertility Treatments

During the last two decades, the treatment of infertility has improved dramatically. These treatments, however, are expensive and rarely covered by insurance, leading many states to adopt regulations mandating that health insurers cover them. In this paper, we explore the effects of benefit mandates on the utilization and outcomes of infertility treatments. We find that use of infertility treatments is significantly greater in states adopting comprehensive versions of these mandates. While greater utilization had little impact on the number of deliveries, mandated coverage was associated with a relatively large increase in the probability of a multiple birth. For relatively low fertility patients who responded to the expanded insurance coverage, treatment was often unsuccessful and did not result in a live birth. For relatively high fertility patients, in contrast, treatment often led to a multiple, rather than a singleton, birth. We also find evidence that the beneficial effects on the intensive treatment margin that have been proposed in other studies are relatively small. We conclude that, while benefit mandates potentially solve a problem of adverse selection in this market, these benefits must be weighed against the costs of the significant moral hazard in utilization they induce.

Reviews

Martin Oliver (ed.), Innovation in the Evaluation of Learning Technology, London: University of North London, 1998. ISBN: 1–85377–256–9. Softback, 242 pages, £15.00

Hacking the Body 2.0 performance

The current technology fervour over wearable technology that collects user’s intimate body data, under the pretence of medical or fitness monitoring, highlights that it is time that critical questions were raised. The ethics of corporate ownership of body data for consumerist agendas is rarely discussed beyond the fine print on these devices. More awareness and education on these issues, would potentially allow more access, ownership, and creativity in the use of one's own body data, and ways to express personal identity through this data. This project questions how body data may be able to demonstrate who we are, through movement, through our physiology. How might access to personal data enable the performer to show their identity, rather than what is subscribed by the corporation making the sensing device? How might we explore these issues while enabling people access to their own data, especially in performance contexts, in order to interact with it? We recently staged 2 performances of the 2 pieces developed for this stage of the project in London, UK (February 16th) and in Sheffield, UK (February 18th) – the first piece: 1) flutter/stutter – haptic costumes with 'tickle motor' actuation and custom vibe actuators, with sound feedback for the audience linked to the touch interaction; and 2) feel me – costumes with a mix of hacked off-the-shelf wearable tech garments with breath and heartrate sensors, with custom smart textile vibe motor actuators and a custom iPad interface for choreographic and audience interventions or 'live coding'. This new iteration of the collaborative project Hacking the Body 2.0, by media artist Camille Baker and media artist/choreographer Kate Sicchio, attempts to address the ethical issues around identity and data ownership when using wearable tech in performance. The project develops methods to use and hack commercial wearable devices, as well as making handmade e-textiles sensing devices for performance. As such, we encourage performers to access their own physiological data for personal use, but also to create unique and interactive performances. Excerpt of new video of these performances will shown and the costumes will be available (non-functioning mode) for questions and discussion

Consumer Demand for Health Information on the Internet

The challenges consumers face in acquiring and using information are a defining feature of health care markets. In this paper, we examine demand for health information on the Internet. We find that individuals in poor health are more likely than those in better health to use the Internet to search for health information and to communicate with others about health and health care. We also find that individuals facing a higher price to obtain information from health care professionals are more likely to turn to the Internet for health information. Our findings indicate that demand for consumer health information depends on the expected benefits of information and the price of information substitutes.

Gene Therapy for Cardiovascular Disease

The last decade has seen substantial advances in the development of gene therapy strategies and vector technology for the treatment of a diverse number of diseases, with a view to translating the successes observed in animal models into the clinic. Perhaps the overwhelming drive for the increase in vascular gene transfer studies is the current lack of successful long-term pharmacological treatments for complex cardiovascular diseases. The increase in cardiovascular disease to epidemic proportions has also led many to conclude that drug therapy may have reached a plateau in its efficacy and that gene therapy may represent a realistic solution to a long-term problem. Here, we discuss gene delivery approaches and target diseases

Crisis and Resistance in the Two Spains: an ethnographic study of the narratives, impact and limitations of protest in Madrid since 2011.

This thesis is concerned with the lasting impact of austerity policies on expressions and experiences of dissent. It draws on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Madrid between 2016 and 2018, creating a new anthropological gauge for political resistance in the wake of crisis. The city of Madrid became, in 2011, a centre-stage for new waves of social movements, in which a wide cross-section of participants mobilised in protests against austerity measures in the midst of the Eurozone crisis. This thesis, removed temporally from the immediacy of these protests, evaluates their form and lasting impact in retrospect. It draws upon a wide sample of narratives and case studies to establish why and how resistance to pervasive economic practices has receded despite the enduring actuality of crisis experiences. While the public engagement of 2011 has shown some resonance on the Spanish electoral scene, readings of resistance as solidary and spontaneous have failed to translate into lasting resistant engagement for many local actors. This thesis broadens anthropological readings of resistance to include not only its active moments and members, but also the latency and sub-strata that make up much of its local reality. Through ethnographic analysis of activists, producers of activist content, and partially resistant audiences, this thesis posits that resistance to austerity in Madrid cannot be explained solely by neoliberal binaries. Rather, it draws upon aesthetic and narrative sub-texts, which local actors recognise and re-use to shape their own actions as resistant. I argue that local sub-texts of dissent are articulated along pre-existing socio-historic fractures in Spain, setting resistance in retrospective and disenchanted gazes which hinder its creative potential in the face of neoliberal oppression

Infants' Contracts:Law and Policy in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Under English law, prior to 1970 young people up to the age of 21 lacked the capacity to make binding contracts, subject to certain exceptions. The report of the Latey Committee on the Age of Majority, which had recommended a reduction to age 18, was one-sided and, so far as capacity to make contracts was concerned, offered scant evidence as to the motivations of the existing law. The Committee heard evidence from the Church asserting, with no evidence, that such rules were intended to control young people and were there to protect the interests of others. This article argues, especially from analysis of the relevant case law during the 18th and 19th centuries - the principle period of development of English jurisprudence on minors' contracts - that the law's motivation had in reality been to protect infants from themselves and from adults who sought to prey on their naivety and impulsiveness