Recent trends in health care costs, health care coverage, and household income have contributed to growing disparities between different income groups in the United States.

This PricewaterhouseCoopers report addresses how employers’ satisfaction with health insurers has eroded over the past year. Employers’ expectations of their health insurers continue to change. While many studies examine the relationship between employees and their employer-sponsored benefits, less is known about employers and what they want from health insurance carriers. Employers want insurers to evolve their consultative relationship by helping them engage their employees, manage costs and cut waste. These expectations provide health insurers with new opportunities to offer more value to their employer customers.

Compared to Americans, German citizens enjoy broader health care benefits at lower cost. Could such a system work in the US?

President Obama is about to unveil a health bill proposal that could give federal regulators the authority to regulate health insurance rates.
The rate regulation provision is part of a proposal that the Obama administration has drafted in an effort to “bridge the gap” between the House and Senate health bills. A copy of the proposal has been obtained by National Underwriter.

Although the health care debate has slowed on a national level, many states are discussing universal coverage plans for their residents. To date, three states have passed some form of universal coverage plans, while many others have plans in the works. The article presents a summary in table form of the states that are working toward reform, along with a brief description of their efforts.

Employer-provided group health plans must offer the same level of coverage for mental illness and drug abuse treatment as other ailments according to new federal law.

Lifestyle Based Analytics can be used for a variety of decision-making behaviors and events in healthcare.

A new omnibus survey released today by the National Council on Patient Information and Education (NCPIE) and Prescription Solutions, a leading pharmacy benefit management organization and a UnitedHealth Group company and recently appointed to the NCPIE Board of Directors, finds that 54% of Americans say they do not consistently take prescriptions as instructed even though 87% believe prescription medicines are important to their health – pointing to a growing public health problem.

In today’s health care arena in the United States, two seemingly inexorable, and conflicting, forces seem to be on a collision course. Politically, the cry is for universal insurance coverage, or more accurately access, for health care. Economically, the common perception is that health care in the United States costs too much and doesn’t necessarily deliver as much bang for the buck as it should considering the price. Reconciling these forces seems at best difficult and at worst impossible, but there is a way.

The September 2009 issue looks at:

• Life Reinsurance Data from The Munich American Survey By David M. Bruggeman
• What Reinsurers and Cedants Can Learn from Uncle Rex and the Bulls By Rick Flaspöhler
• Reinsurance Modernization – A New World ViewBy Daniel W. Krane and Elizabeth A. Diffley
• Life Reinsurance: Capacity and Concentration of Risk Survey Analysis By William J. Briggs, Gaetano Geretto and Robert B. Lau
• Enhancing the Benefit: How quality successful limited-benefit health plans answered the demand for a more robust product By Curt A. Wieden
• American Academy of Actuaries Stop Loss Risk-Based Capital Work Group is Reviewing the Potential Need for Changes in the RBC FactorsBy Michael L. Frank

The old adage that "a company's employees are its most valuable assets" is truer than ever. Trends including globalization, changing workforce demographics and the increasing expense associated with recruiting and training skilled workers are contributing to a worldwide human capital shortage. During an economic recession, it's even more crucial for companies to manage health risks effectively for better outcomes, lower costs and higher productivity from a healthier workforce.

The data is presented by Type of Visit, Black/White Race, and Age Group.

The Influenza A(H1N1) outbreak in Mexico and other parts of the world is clearly cause for concern, not least for those communities already directly affected. One of Swiss Re’s leading pandemic experts, Bob Howe, answers some key questions.

You can check out the latest on the global spread of influenza here.

The swine flu outbreak in Mexico and other parts of the world is clearly cause for concern, not least for those communities already directly affected. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) there is a significant increase in risk of a pandemic, but this does not necessarily mean that a pandemic is a foregone conclusion."

Despite what Rush Limbaugh would have us believe, the movement toward electronic medical records is not about some Orwellian plot. Hospitals' Electronic Wasteland looks at stimulus funds aiming to change a system largely devoid of in-depth electronic record keeping.

On Tuesday, March 24, at 9:30 a.m. EDT, health professionals from across the country will share their experiences and discuss a new report on the startling numbers of people struggling without access to basic health care during these tough economic times.

How do we picture probability? How can a patient deciding on a course of drugs be expected to translate “a 7% chance of dying” or “a 20% likelihood of negative side-effects” into a meaningful image?

Drugs tailored to an individual's genetic makeup promise to be safer and more effective, but they raise tricky economic and ethical questions.

Cancer doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital plan within a year to read the genetic fingerprints of nearly all new patients' tumors, a novel strategy designed to customize treatment.

A thorny question lies at the heart of meaningful health care reform. How much is human life worth?

Research from Wharton and Stanford based on Medicare kidney dialysis data shows that the average figure -- $129,090 per additional year of quality life -- is higher than prior studies have shown. Perhaps more important, the study also puts a value on the cost-effectiveness of treatment across percentiles of the entire dialysis population in an attempt to develop a benchmark for health care coverage decisions.

Health spending will hit $2.5 trillion this year, devouring 17.6 percent of the economy, as the White House and Congress consider major changes to the healthcare system, U.S. government economists said on Tuesday.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as CMS, forecast that the share of the economy devoted to health spending will jump a full percentage point from 2008. That would mark the biggest one-year increase recorded since the government began tracking the data in 1960.

Conventional wisdom holds that the cost of chronic care is a major factor in the rising overall cost of healthcare. This makes sense intuitively. But what does the data say?

Our analysis of chronic and non-chronic Medicare populations turns conventional wisdom on its head. On a per-patient basis, we found that non-chronic patients have a higher rate of healthcare cost increase than do those with chronic conditions.

Presentation by Valerie Lendt at the SOA Individual and Small Group Health Insurance Underwriting Seminar, September 2008.

http://www.soa.org/files/pdf/2008-orlando-annual-40.pdf

• Life Reinsurance Data From The Munich American Survey
• Longevity: Mortality Improvement
• Solvency II—What It Means For Reinsurers
• Limited Medical Benefit Plans—What Insurance Companies, Employers And Reinsurers Need To Know
• Update In The Employer Stop Loss Medical Insurance Market
• Reinsurance Execs Predict Capital Channels Will Blur
• STOLI Poses Danger To Industry, Reinsurers Warned

...and more.

January 2008 – Infectious disease specialists agree that it cannot be predicted when the next influenza pandemic will occur. However, since documentation began in the 16th century, the world has witnessed an average of three global outbreaks of influenza per century. The 20th century has seen three such pandemics. The first and most devastating pandemic, known as ‘Spanish Flu’

A discussion of the risks and opportunities that face the health discipline.

A thorny question lies at the heart of meaningful health care reform. How much is human life worth?

The latest issue of Contingencies presents a look at the healthcare proposals of Barack Obama and John McCain. This piece focuses on a few aspects of the candidates' plans.