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Elyas Bakhtiari

@elyasbakhtiari

Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Schroeder Center for Health Policy at William & Mary. My research focuses on health inequalities, immigration, and race.

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21.11.2024
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Latest posts by Elyas Bakhtiari @elyasbakhtiari

All Policy Is Health Policy

10.02.2026 14:23 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Ring: Don't worry, our massive AI surveillance network will only be used to find innocent lost puppies.

Matthew Broderick: Don't worry, AI replacing your labor will just be like a fun Ferris Bueller's day off.

09.02.2026 14:48 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Fascism

29.01.2026 15:07 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Trump Administration Drops Appeal in School D.E.I. Lawsuit

The American Sociology Association takes a lot of flak, but deserves credit for fighting and winning on this alongside the American Federation of Teachers:

24.01.2026 17:54 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Health is a social problem, not a technical one. It will be solved socially and politically, or not at all.

16.11.2025 21:12 πŸ‘ 26 πŸ” 12 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
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Opinion | Trump’s new plan for Obamacare leaves Americans to fend for themselves We finally know what β€œconcepts of a plan” looks like – and it’s not good.

Here is my latest for @msnbc.com, on Trump's ill-advised concept of a plan for health care, which entails repealing the ACA, and redistributing private insurers' tax breaks to the people for what would essentially amount to an HSA, which is unhelpful if not wealthy. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

10.11.2025 22:13 πŸ‘ 192 πŸ” 85 πŸ’¬ 10 πŸ“Œ 14
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My colleague, Chris Howard, has a great op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the consequences of demolishing the ACA tax credit in Virginia:
www.wm.edu/as/publicpol...

20.10.2025 19:41 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

It was a great talk! Looking forward to the book!

17.10.2025 00:50 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Coverage Denied: How Health Insurers Drive Inequality in the United States Amazon.com: Coverage Denied: How Health Insurers Drive Inequality in the United States: 9781009649810: Yaver, Miranda: Books

You can now pre-order on Amazon my forthcoming book Coverage Denied: How Health Insurers Drive Inequality in the United States! This book was a labor of love, combining a survey, administrative data, and interviews to illuminate the American exceptionalism of health insurance barriers a.co/d/iBTKSLG

15.10.2025 11:48 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 14 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0
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Universities Must Reject Trump Admin 'Loyalty Oath' Compacts The AAUP and AFT warn that the Trump administration’s offer to give preferential treatment to colleges and universities that court government favor in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological...

The Trump admin’s offer to give preferential treatment to institutions that toe the party line reeks of bribery in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda.

This is corruption.

Adherence to β€˜loyalty oaths’ would usher in a new era of thought policing in American higher education.

02.10.2025 19:31 πŸ‘ 467 πŸ” 249 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 9
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A&M Dean removed following student complaints over curriculum The Department of Justice has also acknowledged the situation and said it would be investigating.

Texas A&M’s President just removed a dean and department head from their positions after they supported a professor whose lesson on gender was challenged by a student. www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...

09.09.2025 10:07 πŸ‘ 575 πŸ” 276 πŸ’¬ 94 πŸ“Œ 254
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The Role of Labor Unions in Creating Working Conditions That Promote Public Health | AJPH | Vol. 106 Issue 6 We sought to portray how collective bargaining contracts promote public health, beyond their known effect on individual, family, and community well-being. In November 2014, we created an abstraction t...

Happy Labor Day! As a proud public health professor and member of USW, some articles showing the public health benefits of labor unions.

Unions promote safer working conditions and better contract-protected benefits, along with a sense of community. ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/...

01.09.2025 12:12 πŸ‘ 109 πŸ” 38 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1

As long as tenure is the primary way to protect academic freedom (which all faculty should have, not just the 23% who are tenured), it should be as accessible as possible. Make it less of a status competition and more like the probationary period for new union members.

29.08.2025 21:04 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Congratulations!!

02.06.2025 23:47 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Everyone in higher ed should read this Chris Rufo interview and take it seriously and literally

07.03.2025 15:20 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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People are becoming wary of hospitals, leaving waiting rooms empty and doctors concerned As Trump floods streets with immigration agents to target people for deportation, doctors are struggling to get people inside for basic care.

This is no surprise... and I'm wondering if there are any datasets with close to real-time data on emergency department visits? A lot of EDs publish current wait times, which seems like it could serve as a signal for which communities are avoiding care right now.

07.02.2025 14:50 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Tens of millions of people would be at risk of losing #Medicaid coverage under recent red-tape-laden work requirement proposals. State level estimates in our new paper: www.cbpp.org/research/hea...

16.01.2025 14:05 πŸ‘ 100 πŸ” 47 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 10

#AllPolicyIsHealthPolicy

30.12.2024 18:12 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The Benefits and Costs of Paid Family Leave Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

β€œUsing the most conservative estimates or the mean estimates from this literature, we estimate that every $1,000 investment in paid parental leave would generate, respectively, $7,275 or $29,406 in present discounted net social benefits.”

27.12.2024 17:48 πŸ‘ 29 πŸ” 21 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Infant Mortality Increases Across US Following Dobbs Decision The Dobbs decision was associated with a 7% absolute increase in overall infant mortalityβ€”equivalent to 247 excess deathsβ€”and a 10% increase among infants with congenital anomalies, corresponding to 2...

Me, a public health person, just sitting over here reflecting on the fact that the US has experienced a 7% increase in infant mortality post-Dobbs.

Like, do you realize what that says about this society from an ethical perspective? That we made policy choices that caused this?

#PHEthx

17.12.2024 18:29 πŸ‘ 11771 πŸ” 5280 πŸ’¬ 35 πŸ“Œ 509
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Doctors Say Dealing With Health Insurers Is Only Getting Worse Medical providers say they are frustrated by the aggravation and expense of convincing insurance companies to pay for their patients’ care.

Historically, MDs have been pivotal to health care reform efforts, and their interests have often aligned with other stakeholders invested in the status quo. But there's a political opportunity to get MDs on board with bigger reforms by promising autonomy from private insurers. Drive that wedge.

13.12.2024 19:59 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The Power to Heal – Vanderbilt University Press In less than four months, beginning with a staff of five, an obscure office buried deep within the federal bureaucracy transformed the nation's hospitals fro...

This may not be quite what you're looking for, but The Power to Heal makes a good case that the civil rights movement played a big role in finally moving health care reform forward, in the form Medicare www.vanderbiltuniversitypress.com/978082652107...

12.12.2024 19:59 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The Mortality Implications of a Unionized Career An emerging literature has documented a wide range of protections and benefits that union membership provides for health and wellbeing. However, this …

Over lifetime, each additional year of union membership reduces the odds of mortality by 1.5%. Effects primarily occur between ages of 41 and 67.

Nice work @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

11.12.2024 15:41 πŸ‘ 500 πŸ” 219 πŸ’¬ 9 πŸ“Œ 29

Given the deep discontentment with the status quo of U.S. health care, I can't help but wonder how the election might have played out differently if Harris had stuck with her previous support for Medicare for All.

06.12.2024 12:08 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0