Lessons for future public policy and research

Public policy ; Welfare

Governance Issues for Health Insurance Exchanges

Outlines considerations for states in deciding how to structure a health insurance exchange, as well as issues of funding sources, operational flexibility, political independence and accountability, management structure, and sub-state dimensions

Parton distributions with threshold resummation

We construct a set of parton distribution functions (PDFs) in which fixed-order NLO and NNLO calculations are supplemented with soft-gluon (threshold) resummation up to NLL and NNLL accuracy respectively, suitable for use in conjunction with any QCD calculation in which threshold resummation is included at the level of partonic cross sections. These resummed PDF sets, based on the NNPDF3.0 analysis, are extracted from deep-inelastic scattering, Drell-Yan, and top quark pair production data, for which resummed calculations can be consistently used. We find that, close to threshold, the inclusion of resummed PDFs can partially compensate the enhancement in resummed matrix elements, leading to resummed hadronic cross-sections closer to the fixed-order calculation. On the other hand, far from threshold, resummed PDFs reduce to their fixed-order counterparts. Our results demonstrate the need for a consistent use of resummed PDFs in resummed calculations.Comment: 43 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in JHE

Method for carbon dioxide splitting

A method for splitting carbon dioxide via a two-step metal oxide thermochemical cycle by heating a metal oxide compound selected from an iron oxide material of the general formula AxFe3-xO4, where 0≦x≦1 and A is a metal selected from Mg, Cu, Zn, Ni, Co, and Mn, or a ceria oxide compound of the general formula MaCebOc, where

Transport and Spectroscopic Studies of the Effects of Fullerene Structure on the Efficiency and Lifetime of Polythiophene-based Solar Cells

Time-dependent measurements of both power conversion efficiency and ultraviolet-visible absorption spectroscopy have been observed for solar cell blends containing the polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT) with two different functionalized C60 electron acceptor molecules: commercially available [6,6]-phenyl C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) or [6,6]-phenyl C61 butyric acid octadecyl ester (PCBOD) produced in this laboratory. Efficiency was found to decay with an exponential time dependence, while spectroscopic features show saturating exponential behavior. Time constants extracted from both types of measurements showed reasonable agreement for samples produced from the same blend. In comparison to the PCBM samples, the stability of the PCBOD blends was significantly enhanced, while both absorption and power conversion efficiency were decreased.Comment: manuscript submitted to Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cell

Five-State Study of ACA Marketplace Competition

The health insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were intended to broaden health insurance coverage by making it relatively easy for the uninsured, armed with income-related federal subsidies, to choose health plans that met their needs from an array of competing options. The further hope was that competition among health plans on the exchanges would lead to lower costs and higher value for consumers, because inefficient, low-value plans would lose out in the competitive market place. This study sought to understand the diverse experience in five states under the ACA in order to gain insights for improving competition in the private health insurance industry and the implementation of the ACA.In spring 2016, the insurance marketplaces had been operating for nearly three full years. There were numerous press stories of plans' decisions to enter or leave selected states or market areas within states and to narrow provider networks by including fewer choices among hospitals, medical specialists, and other providers. There were also beginning to be stories of insurer requests for significant premium increases. However, there was no clear understanding of how common these practices were, nor how and why practices differed across carriers, markets, and state regulatory settings.This project used the ACA Implementation Research Network to conduct field research in California, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas. In each state, expert field researchers engaged directly with marketplace stakeholders, including insurance carriers, provider groups, state regulators, and consumer engagement organizations, to identify and understand their various decisions. This focus included an effort to understand why carriers choose to enter or exit markets and the barriers they faced, how provider networks were built, and how state regulatory decisions affected decision-making. Ultimately, it sought to find where and why certain markets are successful and competitive and how less competitive markets might be improved.The study of five states was not intended to provide statistically meaningful generalizations about the functioning of the marketplace exchanges. Rather, it was intended to accomplish two other objectives. First, the study was designed to generate hypotheses about the development and evolution of the exchanges that might be tested with "harder" data from all the exchanges. Second, it sought to describe the potentially idiosyncratic nature of the marketplaces in each of the five states. Political and economic circumstances may differ substantially across markets. Policymakers and market participants need to appreciate the nuances of different local settings if programs are to be successful. What works in Michigan may not work in Texas and vice versa. Field research of this sort can give researchers and policymakers insight into how idiosyncratic local factors matter in practice.In brief, our five states had four years of experience in the open enrollment periods from 2014 through 2017. The states array themselves in a continuum of apparent success in enhancing and maintaining competition among insurers. California and Michigan appear to have had success in nurturing insurer competition, in at least the urban areas of their states. Florida, North Carolina, and Texas were less successful. This divergence is recent, however. As recently as the 2015 and 2016 open enrollment periods, all of the states had what appeared to be promising, if not always robust, insurance competition. Large changes occurred in the run-up to the 2017 open enrollment period

Hybrid metal oxide cycle water splitting

Hybrid thermochemical water splitting cycles are provided in which thermally reduced metal oxides particles are used to displace some but not all of the electrical requirements in a water splitting electrolytic cell. In these hybrid cycles, the thermal reduction temperature is significantly reduced compared to two-step metal-oxide thermochemical cycles in which only thermal energy is required to produce hydrogen from water. Also, unlike the conventional higher temperature cycles where the reduction step must be carried out under reduced oxygen pressure, the reduction step in the proposed hybrid cycles can be carried out in air, allowing for thermal input by a solar power tower with a windowless, cavity receiver