Blog

A summary of changes to licensing requirements for nurses from before and during the pandemic focuses on the Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC) and its reforms to interstate licensing. 

To conclude the year, Alexandra Contreras, Elizabeth Lee, and Stephanie Lu present here a month-by-month journey in figures through The Hamilton Project’s research, analysis, and policy proposals.

Jay Shambaugh offers answers to frequently asked questions about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the U.S. economy and the implementation of various fiscal and monetary policy tools used in response to the crisis.

Hamilton Project Director Jay Shambaugh comments on the COVID-19 virus and how economic policies with automatic triggers can alleviate the financial burden of the epidemic.

Americans have enjoyed an overall gain of about 25 years in life expectancy at birth during the past century and eductions in mortality have continued in recent years for many Americans, including non-whites, the young, and those with higher incomes. Yet for other demographic groups, progress has stalled or even reversed. Disparities in life expectancy persist and some recent trends in mortality are cause for alarm.

In advance of an upcoming forum, The Hamilton Project previews a new set of economic facts on health care and health insurance markets, and three new proposals to draw attention to the enduring challenges in the health care industry.

Rising life expectancy, combined with the risk of health shocks that will require spending huge sums of money on long-term services and supports, makes retirement planning a daunting challenge.The Hamilton Project previews upcoming papers and an event about retirement security.

In today’s “Wonkbook,” Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas discuss the success of the Oregon Medicaid experiment, which they note is the first randomized-controlled trial on Medicaid coverage. For the experiment, Oregon held a lottery among low-income adults in 2008 to expand Medicaid coverage to 10,000 residents, and then compared this group with a similar group of adults without health coverage. Klein and Soltas write that the successful experiment was a “sad accident” because of its design and note that if more federal dollars were spent “to figure out which policies work and which don’t, we’d quickly amass a huge storehouse of evidence that could help us spend every other dollar in the budget more effectively.” Klein and Soltas highlight a recent Hamilton Project and Results for America proposal by Harvard Kennedy School’s Jeffrey Liebman, “,” which proposes reforming government funding practices to reward innovation and evidence. To read the full piece, click here.

In her latest Project Syndicate column, Advisory Council member Laura D’Andrea Tyson questions why the growth in health-care spending has slowed down over the last five years. She discusses a variety of studies that suggest the slowdown will continue even after the economy recovers. She concludes that without a slowdown in health-care spending growth, “stabilizing the federal debt at a sustainable level will require deep cuts in spending on other priorities and increases in taxes on the middle class.” To read the full piece, click here.

In a recent Washington Post column on federal budget negotiations, Ruth Marcus highlights several proposals from The Hamilton Project’s “15 Ways to Rethink the Federal Budget.” Marcus offers the proposals as “suggested reading” for policymakers and suggests that there are several ideas that could be appealing to both parties. Marcus features ““Transitioning to Bundled Payments in Medicare,” by Michael Chernew and Dana Goldman; “Restructuring Cost Sharing and Supplemental Insurance for Medicare,” by Jonathan Gruber; “Replacing the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction,” by Alan Viard; and “Better Ways to Promote Saving through the Tax System,” by Karen Dynan. To read the full piece, click here.

The Washington Post’s Wonkblog highlights work from The Hamilton Project and selections by several Advisory Council members in its feature titled, “2012: The Year in Graphs.” The piece quotes Hamilton Project Director Michael Greenstone and highlights two graphs from The Project on costs associated with various sources of electricity generation and the change in family earnings of children. Wonkblog also quotes Advisory Council members Robert Greenstein, Peter Orszag and Alice Rivlin who weigh in on charts and graphs they felt best represented the year. To read the full piece, click here.

The Hill's "Healthwatch" highlights a new Research!America report that shows declines in federal spending on medical research and development of 14% or more than $6 billion between fiscal years 2010 and 2011. The Hamilton Project addressed the declining spending on research development in a paper, "A Dozen Economic Facts About Innovation," which examines the role of innovation in driving the U.S. economy. Read the full paper here.

In his Bloomberg column, Advisory Council member Peter Orszag discusses the scoring of Republican vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan by the Congressional Budget Office, and how it compares to Medicare Advantage.

Bloomberg’s Richard Rubin cites Hamilton Project data showing the impacts of reducing income tax rates on revenues and progressivity of the tax schedule.

Hamilton Project Advisory Council member Alan S. Blinder discusses the Supreme Court’s hearings of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, and the economic issues at stake.

Hamilton Project Director Michael Greenstone conducted research as part of his work as professor of economics with MIT on the ability of clean cookstoves to improve health and environment in the developing world.

In an op/ed for The Hill, Advisory Council member Alice Rivlin and Pete Domenici discuss the need for structural changes to Medicare to bring down cost, as well as the need for new revenues to accommodate the retirement of baby boomers.