This paper examines climate change mitigation and adaptation from an insurance industry perspective, with particular reference to London and the USA. It illustrates how British insurers are increasingly shaping public policy and using new technology to manage the risks from climate change impacts and makes a plea for society to make more use of insurance expertise in future decision making. In ...

This paper investigates the relationship between the macroeconomy and health insurance coverage for non-elderly Americans. We find that, for men, state unemployment rate is positively correlated with the probability of health insurance coverage in general and through an employer in particular, and that these correlations are only partly explained by changes in employment status. In contrast, th...

Background: In China, rapid urbanization has caused migration from rural to urban areas, and raised the prevalence of hypertension. However, public health insurance is not portable from one place to another, and migration may limit the effectiveness of this non-portable health insurance on healthcare. Our study aims to investigate whether migration limits the effectiveness of health insurance o...

A ithough Congress and other public policymakers have debated endlessly on the financing and restructuring of America's healthcare system, most arc loath to micromanage medical practice decisions— especially in this current era of Republican leadership. Yet this summer a number of state and congressional leaders have begun to propose and pass legislation that would dictate the length of a hospi...

1 Davis P, Lay-Yee R, Briant R, Schug S, Scott A, Johnson S, et al. Adverse events in New Zealand public hospitals: principal findings from a national survey. Wellington: Ministry of Health, 2001. (Occasional paper No 3.) www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf (accessed 25 Nov 2002). 2 Gostin L. A public health approach to reducing error: medical malpractice as a barrier. JAMA 2000;283:1742. 3 Miller RS. An a...

We review the 1992 policy choices in California for expanding health insurance coverage, focusing on the rejection of an employer mandate by legislators and voters. We analyze how interest-group politics, gubernatorial politics, and national politics shaped those choices. Although public opinion and the shift of organized medicine showed considerable support for extending health insurance cover...

* The author would like to thank Ljiljana Marušić (Croatian Pension Insurance Institute) for helpful comments during research and Gordana Živec Šašić (Croatian Pension Insurance Institute) for providing data. The author is also grateful to participants of roundtables organized by the Institute of Public Finance and Banka magazine within the project “Pension System Analysis” and participants of ...

Current approaches to reducing the number of uninsured include insurance tax credits for individuals and employers, expanding private group coverage, expanding eligibility for public programs, creating new public programs, and reforming insurance markets. Proposals vary in how they would expand coverage, how many uninsured would be covered, and how much they would cost. Although the costs of ex...

This Issue Brief provides background information on the employment-based health insurance system and its alternatives. The report discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the current employment-based health insurance system, the current tax treatment of health insurance, and the strength and weaknesses of recent proposals to introduce tax credits. It presents findings from the public opini...

This is the latest in a series of reports of the same title that have been published intermittently since the early 1960’s. The term social security is popularly used in the United States to refer to the basic national social insurance program-old-age, survivors, disability, and health insurance. The term is used here in a broader sense to describe all types of social insurance, social assistan...