Coronavirus Crisis: U.S. States & Local Government Financial Challenges, and Impact on Public Health

May 14, 2020 | State government finances

State and Local Government Financial Challenges Caused by the Coronavirus Crisis, and Impact on Public Health ETIENNE DEFFARGES The U.S. government has provided a lot of financial relief to American households, small and large businesses, and hospitals to help mitigate the devastating economic and health impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The CARES Act totals nearly …

When Will We Know If Lifting Coronavirus Lockdowns Is “Working?”

May 10, 2020 | Lockdown

When will we know if lifting lockdowns is “working,” and what would prompt us to fall back into additional lockdowns? In the countries and U.S. states that implemented well crafted “reopening” plans, the scientific and medical criteria that convinced their governments it was safe to lift lockdowns to allow their people to go back …

A Very Relevant Question in Times of Pandemic: Can Medicare for All Work?

April 30, 2020 | Medicare for All

Can Medicare for All Work? With U.S. voters consistently putting healthcare at the very top of their concerns, it is no surprise that Medicare for All (MFA) has garnered a lot of attention during the very competitive 2020 Democratic presidential primary. In terms of definition, let’s keep it simple and assume that MFA means a …

Published in the Financial Times on April 27, 2020

April 29, 2020 | Covid-19

Legislation, not just investor pressure, will be needed to make companies build up buffers against shocks—in response to the April 24, 2020 Financial Times editorial, “Companies should shift from ‘just in time’ to ‘just in case.’ Pandemic has shown that businesses neglected vital safety margins.” Dear FT editor, Thank you for your excellent …

A Week in March in the U.S. During the Coronavirus Pandemic

March 25, 2020 | Coronavirus

A Week in March During the Coronavirus Pandemic March 17, 2020: Why “flatten the curve” is a big deal in the Coronavirus crisis Several recent studies have shown the “infection adoption” curve at the outset of the Coronavirus pandemic to be very similar in China, South Korea, Italy, Spain, France and Germany. Apart …

Effective Strategies to Reduce Costs and Utilization in US Healthcare

March 24, 2020 | Economy

How to Reduce US Healthcare Costs (Published March 18, 2020) Our healthcare costs keep increasing much faster than inflation, year after year. According to figures released in December 2019 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the annual growth rate of healthcare spending was 4.6% in 2018, vs. 3.9% in 2017, 4.8% …

Should Our Government Use Wellbeing Statistics?

August 21, 2019 | Wellbeing Indicators

Should our government use wellbeing indicators? “Our Gross National Product…counts air pollution and cigarette advertising…special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars …

Climate Change Imperatives Will Drive the Future of Transportation

July 20, 2019 | Climate Change

Climate change demands lower carbon dependency in electricity generation and transportation, by far the two largest global economic sectors in terms of energy use. Clean power solutions already exist: Today 40% of U.S. power generation comes from non-fossil sources, and the electric power sector consumption of fossil fuels is at its lowest level since 1994—25 years of …

Advice and Tips for Immigrant Entrepreneurs

July 19, 2019 | Foreign-born entrepreneurs

Many great American entrepreneurs are immigrants. Think about our amazing foreign-born inventors and industrialists Alexander Bell, Nikola Tesla, Leo Baekeland, Andrew Carnegie and Igor Sikorsky, all the way to Sergei Brin, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Peter Thiel and Jerry Yang today, just to name a few. I have enjoyed this privilege too, in my own …

Addressing Harvard Alumni in the Bay Area

June 25, 2019 | Alumni

HBS CAREER COACHES HIT THE ROAD TO SERVE ALUMNI Northern California Alumni Consider the High Cost of Complexity, HBS AA Article by Margie Kelley (June 2019): Though the United States currently spends approximately $3.5 trillion a year on health care—the equivalent of the entire GDP of the world’s fourth-largest economy—our life expectancy has decreased for the …