Suchergebnisse

"Limiting the growth of health care costs while improving population health is perhaps the most important and difficult challenge facing U.S. health policymakers. The role of innovation in advancing these social goals is controversial, with many seeing innovation as a major cause of cost growth and many others viewing innovation as crucial for improving the quality of care and health outcomes. The authors argue that mitigating the tension between improving health and controlling costs requires more-nuanced perspectives on innovation. More specifically, they argue that policymakers should carefully distinguish between innovative activities that are worth their social costs and activities that are not worth their social costs and try to encourage the former and discourage the latter. The paper considers innovation in drugs, devices, and methods of delivering health care, with particular attention to delivery

U.S. demand for illicit drugs creates markets for Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). This paper examines how marijuana legalization in California might influence DTO revenues and the violence in Mexico, focusing on gross revenues from export and distribution to wholesale markets near the southwestern U.S. border. The analysis described here is rooted in an earlier RAND Corporation study on marijuana legalization (Kilmer, Caulkins, Pacula, et al., 2010) and presents a method of estimating the revenues that international drug traffickers derive from U.S. sales that is transparent and, hence, auditable and replicable. We believe that this method can be iteratively improved by research over time, whereas existing methods that rely heavily on classified information have not been subject to review and have not shown much ongoing improvement. Five technical appendixes include additional information about the weight of a marijuana joint, THC content of sinsemilla and commercial-grade marijuana, marijuana prices, Mexican DTO revenues from drugs other than marijuana, and the availability of Mexican marijuana in the U.S

Despite geographical closeness and many shared economic interests, the United States and Mexico remain wary of one another. Policies designed to curtail the number of Mexican immigrants entering into the United States, a 700-mile-long border fence between the two countries, an increasing illegal drug trade, and continually troubled trucking legislation have somewhat eclipsed the North American Free Trade Agreement's (NAFTA's) cooperative scope. Additionally, the current international economic crisis has put any positive renegotiations between the United States and Mexico on hold. However, to ensure that the economic and political relationship between the two countries is as mutually beneficial as it is sustainable, it is critical that Mexico and the United States reiterate their commitment to their important relationship. This book focuses on how the alliance between the United States and Mexico can be made stronger, combining approaches from economics, demography, and sociology, discussions with U.S. and Mexican policymakers, reviews of published work, and results from opinion surveys. Whether relations between the two countries improve or deteriorate depends on the policies adopted by the current U.S. and Mexican administrations. New leaders in both countries are in a position to tackle common interests and take advantage of new opportunities without the baggage of past missteps and suspicions.--Publisher description