By Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.)* When scientists started the process of sequencing the human genome, it began to unlock limitless advancements in medicine that were and remain virtually unparalleled in our history. At the same time, a new risk arose that genetic information could be used for employment and health insurance discrimination. Every American was a potential victim; none of us were born with perfect genes. No one should be forced to live in fear that their genetic information …
Repeal of Dodd Frank Act-Heralding a new financial crisis?
By Nicolas Deising* & Nihal Dsouza** The Dodd Frank Act is considered to be the most ambitious and far reaching legislation regulating the financial sector since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. On the surface, it instills confidence in the financial system. At a deeper level, it is aimed at preventing similar occurrences to the 2008 financial crisis, in which millions of people lost their homes and jobs and trillions of dollars of national wealth disappeared. Despite its benefits, the …
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Repealing the ACA Would be a Step Backwards in Treatment of HIV
By Mark Satta* “It was a holocaust…All of my peers died of AIDS, and I have no one to celebrate my past or my journey, or to help me pass down stories to the next generation. We lost an entire generation of storytellers with HIV.” Those are the words of David Mixner, a civil rights activist and author, who lived through the horror of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and early 1990s in the United States—a time in which a diagnosis of HIV was, for most, a death sentence, and in which the treatment …
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The Moral Foundations of the Insurance Mandate
By Tina Rulli* Republicans’ new plan to replace the Affordable Care Act ditches the health insurance mandate, the requirement for individuals to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. Instead, their American Health Care Act favors tax credits to incentivize people to purchase insurance. There are many vantage points from which to assess the health insurance law, including legal, economic, and public health perspectives. My focus is on the moral foundations of the individual mandate, …
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