Joseph White, Ph.D. – Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies

Dear Colleagues:

Greetings, and I hope you and yours are healthy and safe and adjusting to the changes during this dangerous and strange time for the world, our nation, and our community.

One of those adjustments in the name of safety is our online version of the “Friday Lunch.” Since large on-campus meetings are no longer possible, we’re continuing our more than thirty years of discussions as “virtual” Zoom meetings. Discussions will begin at 12:30 p.m., the usual time. Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. Every Monday the same information will be posted on our website: fridaylunch.case.edu.

If you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. This week’s link for registration is:

https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcoceyvqj4sGdcv3lQm3vJZLOZ7s6RyoAsc

I miss getting together in person and sharing goodies and side conversations. But so far, perhaps because of our excellent opening speakers – Professors Adler, Entin, and Ku – we’ve had good presentations and discussions. Thank you very much to them, and I hope this week’s speaker and topic can be close to as interesting!

I’m the speaker, and my topic is what some of the most important social science research of recent years might suggest about one of the most divisive issues. In Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, Economics Professors Angus Deaton and Anne Case document and seek to explain falling life expectancy among white Americans with no more than a high school education. Why have suicides, drug overdoses, and deaths from alcoholism increased so radically? Nobel Prize-Winner Deaton and Case group these symptoms together as caused by despair created by the collapse of both economic opportunity and the self-respect and social identity that depend on good jobs. But why has the labor market created such despair?

There are many factors, but Case and Deaton especially emphasize one: that how the U.S. pays for health care gives employers extremely strong incentives to get rid of lower-wage (or even medium-wage) workers. In short, our system of employer-sponsored health insurance for working-age people and their families deprives people of not only health care but jobs, and not only the income that good jobs give but the social belonging that used to be part of long-term employment.

Their analysis suggests a case for government-sponsored insurance, “Medicare for All,” that hasn’t been emphasized so much by its advocates. Yet there are numerous countries in which insurance is provided at least in part through employment. In those countries claims that employer-based insurance will cost jobs have been common – but as I and others have argued, they have not seemed to be supported by the evidence. Is the U.S. really different? If so, why? And does that mean only the most “radical” health insurance reform would fix our problems?

Possibly…. I hope I can say interesting and informative things and we can have a good discussion.

Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.

Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,

Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies

About Our Guest

Joe White joined the CWRU faculty in 2000, serving as Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy in the Department of Political Science. As director of the Center for Policy Studies, he also organizes the Public Affairs Discussion Group. He previously was Associate Professor in the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and before that Research Associate and then Senior Fellow in Governmental Studies at the Brookings Institution. He teaches a series of courses on public policy and U.S. politics, and his research involves both health care policy and federal budgeting. Professor White’s current research includes writing a book on the federal budget process, articles on how experts influence health care policy, and the effects on health systems of having more and more measurements and electronic data requirements.

Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

September 18: The Economy Now and With the Next Administration. With Dean Baker, Ph.D., Senior Economist, Center for Economic and Policy Research.

September 25: Age and Financial Fear. With Christine L. Day, Ph.D, Professor of Political Science, University of New Orleans.

October 2: Leading on Lead Poisoning: New Initiatives in Cleveland and the Role of Research. With Robert L. Fischer, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Co-Director, Center on Urban Poverty & Community Development, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences

October 9: TBA

October 16: Covid-19 and the Economics of Health Care. With J.B. Silvers, PH.,D., John R. Mannix Medical Mutual of Ohio Professor of Health Care Finance.

October 23: COVID-19: Rapid Research and Rapid Revelations. With Mark Cameron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences.

October 30: Election Forecast Discussion. Speakers To Be Determined

November 6: “Banning the Box”: The Substance and Politics of Legislation to Reduce Obstacles to Hiring Felons. With Daniel Shoag, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics.

November 13: Targeted Assassinations and Other Red and Not-So-Red Lines. With Shannon E. French, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Inamori Professor of Ethics, and Director, Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence

November 20: What’s the Beef? The Controversy Over the Health Effects of Red Meat. With Hope Barkoukis, Ph.D., Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Professor in Wellness and Preventive Care and Chair, Department of Nutrition.

December 4: The Economics of Sports After (?) COVID-19. With Jonathan Ernest, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics.