LPE Originals
Don’t Reform Policing, Transform It
There is a distressing disconnect between the ringing demands for justice on the streets and the suite of “police reform” proposals that many experts say satisfy these demands.
LPE Originals
Flattening the Curve and Closing the Gap: The Civil Rights of Health During a Global Pandemic
“We’re all in this together” has become a familiar call for strengthening our sense of community and social responsibility during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although this phrase can obscure deep social inequities, this recognition of our interdependence presents an opportunity to connect economic justice and public health. COVID-19 has instilled a new public understanding that our…
LPE Originals
The Fiscal Reckoning to Come: Paying for Virus Relief in an Era of Tax Cuts
To combat the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government has enacted relief packages totaling nearly $2.5 trillion, with more aid likely to come. The fourth and latest effort contains $75 billion in grants for hospitals, and $25 billion to improve coronavirus testing. As economist Austan Goolsbee has rightly noted, “the number one rule of virus economics…
LPE Originals
Two Timelines of Covid Crisis
We often hear that the current COVID crisis came “out of the blue,” that “nobody” was expecting it.* But anyone with a decent grasp of pressing issues in public health knew the risks of pandemics. As I wrote in 2014: [R]eduction in hospital facilities and other resources, although “efficient” in normal times, may prove disastrous if there…
LPE Originals
Slumlord Capitalism v. Global Pandemic: LPE on Covid (vol 3)
By
John Whitlow
As part of our ongoing effort to bring you the best LPE work on COVID-19, today we bring you this piece from John Whitlow, followed by a roundup of LPE COVID writing published elsewhere. The poet Langston Hughes once wrote, “I wish the rent was heaven sent.” With a record 10 million Americans filing for…
LPE Originals
LPE on COVID (vol 2)
By
Noah Zatz
Today, as part of our ongoing effort to bring you the best LPE work on COVID-19, we’re reposting a letter from Professor Noah Zatz to his City Counsel regarding evictions during the pandemic.
LPE Originals
LPE on COVID 19
By
Editors
We’re living in strange times. As we try to make sense of the moment, LPE Blog wants to offer some COVID 19 coverage from our regular contributors. We’re starting today with some work that Amy Kapczynski has done with various colleagues.
LPE Originals
Coronavirus and the Politics of Care
It is now clear that we are entering a new phase of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The virus appears in new countries around the world each day. New cases are now regularly reported in the United States, and as testing is scaled up, that number will increase, probably substantially. It is clear now that the…
LPE Originals
The Case for Basic Health
We seem to be approaching an apotheosis of liberal health care angst, as the irresistible force of the appeal of truly universal health care meets the immovable object of Democrats’ desire to make double-triple-sure not to lose the 2020 election. Replacing our current shambles of a health care system with something much simpler and more…
LPE Originals
Medicare for All: How to Reduce Inequality in the Long-Term Care Market
This post is part of our symposium on Medicare for All. You can find all the posts in the series here. *** Medicare for All has the potential to address gaps in access to quality long-term care services for the elderly by mitigating some of the inequities in the market for long-term care. It could do…
LPE Originals
Reclaiming Notice and Comment
In this anti-regulatory moment, notice-and-comment might seem a quaint artifact from a bygone age: with such meager regulatory output, especially aimed at industry, what is left to comment on? Instead, however, notice-and-comment has become a key tool of opponents of the current administration—a vehicle for mobilizing “grassroots experts” and enabling marginalized voices to speak against dehumanizing agency action.
LPE Originals
Democratizing Administrative Governance: How the Civil Rights Movement Shaped Medicare’s Implementation
Medicare would serve as the first real test of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which banned the allocation of any federal funds to entities that discriminated on the basis of race. The success of Title VI would depend on forging a strong relationship between officials administering the program and the civil rights movement. The change that ultimately resulted from this collaboration offers a concrete example of how democratic movements can leverage grassroots pressure, public enforcement and government spending power to transform sectors of the economy.
LPE Originals
Medicare for All: A Leap into the Known?
My contribution to this symposium argues not only that some version of Medicare for All is necessary, but also that it may not be as radical as critics claim.
LPE Originals
Medicare for All and Medicare for America: What Are We Fighting Over? Part II
While the Medicare for America bill is arranged with great promise and enormous care, its real significance lies not in this snapshot description but in the distributional and politico-historical dynamics that its opt-out structure unleashes over time.
LPE Originals
Medicare for All and Medicare for America: What Are We Fighting Over? Part I
This post is part of our symposium on Medicare for All. You can find all the posts in the series here. *** The early contours of the health care debate have featured a loose divide between those favoring so-called “single-payer Medicare for All,” and those who propose some kind of “public option.” To drill down to…