Family Security Insurance: A New Foundation for Economic Security

A report released by Georgetown Law\u27s Workplace Flexibility 2010 and the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security (Berkeley CHEFS) outlining a blueprint for establishing and financing a new national insurance program to provide wage replacement for time off for health and caregiving needs. The report describes the need among working Americans for time off from work to address personal illness, to care for a new child, or to care for a loved one with a serious illness. It argues that the need for time off is no longer an issue for individual families or select industries, but a national priority that has major social and economic implications. Family Security Insurance, the national insurance program proposed in the report, would fundamentally reform social policy to address workers\u27 critical needs, and, at the same time, spread the cost fairly, protect the deficit, and keep people working

Still living with mortality: The longevity risk transfer market after one decade

This paper updates Living with Mortality published in 2006. It describes how the longevity risk transfer market has developed over the intervening period, and, in particular, how insurance-based solutions – buy-outs, buy-ins and longevity insurance – have triumphed over capital markets solutions that were expected to dominate at the time. Some capital markets solutions – longevity-spread bonds, longevity swaps, q-forwards, and tail-risk protection – have come to market, but the volume of business has been disappointingly low. The reason for this is that when market participants compare the index-based solutions of the capital markets with the customized solutions of insurance companies in terms of basis risk, credit risk, regulatory capital, collateral, and liquidity, the former perform on balance less favourably despite a lower potential cost.We discuss the importance of stochastic mortality models for forecasting future longevity and examine some applications of these models, e.g., determining the longevity risk premiumand estimating regulatory capital relief. The longevity risk transfer market is now beginning to recognize that there is insufficient capacity in the insurance and reinsurance industries to deal fully with demand and new solutions for attracting capital markets investors are now being examined – such as longevity-linked securities and reinsurance sidecars

Readjusting the social democratic welfare state in Denmark 1973 - 2003

As a social democratic welfare state, Denmark has offered universal and generous benefits promoting equality and diminishing stigmatisation; provision is almost entirely taxfinanced and public services play an important role. Consequently, welfare state spending has been traditionally high. Thus, one would expect that globalisation and low economic growth will threaten this welfare state arrangement. However, the example of Denmark shows that high public expenditure on the welfare state could be conserved. Albeit, in the last decade this small country in the North of Europe has gained much attention as role model for successful welfare state restructuring. The question is thus, how did Denmark readjust its welfare state to the changed environment? Therefore the present paper focuses on policy developments in four major welfare programmes: health care, labour market, old-age pensions and family since the 1970s. By comparatively contrasting these developments the paper is furthermore able to identify patterns in the process of readjusting the Danish welfare state. --

Building robust m-commerce payment system on offline wireless network

Mobile commerce is one of the upcoming research area with focus on mobile payment systems. Unfortunately, the current payment systems is directly dependent on fixed infrastructure of network (cellular network), which fails to facilitate optimal level of security for the payment system. The proposed system highlights a novel approach for building a secure, scalable, and flexible e-payment systems in the distributed scenario of wireless adhoc network in offline mode of communication for enhanced security on transaction and payment process. The proposed system uses Simple Public Key Infrastructure for providing the security in payment processes. The performance analysis of the proposed model shows that the system is highly robust and secure ensuring anonymity, privacy, non-repudiation offline payment system over wireless adhoc network

Unemployment Compensation and Older Workers

Unemployment compensation in the United States is provided through a federal-state system of unemployment insurance (UI). UI provides temporary partial wage replacement to active job seekers who are involuntarily out of work. For older workers, UI is an important source of income security and a potential influence on work incentives. For many, the transition from full-time work in a career job to retirement is voluntary and orderly. For others, job displacement greatly disrupts plans. The transition often involves many intermediate steps. The chain of transitions may include full- or part-time work on another job which most often is not in the same industry and occupation (a bridge job). There may also be movement between bridge jobs, perhaps back from a bridge job to a career job, and finally a gradual movement into full retirement while out of the labor force. Many issues at the forefront of current UI policy debate are also issues of prime importance to those in the second half of their working life. Issues occur in all the standard areas of UI policy: coverage, eligibility, benefit adequacy, duration of benefits, work incentives, benefit financing, and interaction with other programs. This paper provides a brief background sketch of the labor market situation of older workers to examine issues of prime concern to older workers in these areas of UI policy. Our survey of policy issues suggests that changes in UI rules concerning, initial eligibility, continuing eligibility, wage replacement, and partial benefits should all be examined to evaluate effects on the likely employment patterns of older workers. Particular attention should be given to UI features affecting the choice of self-employment, part-time work, seasonal work, and agricultural jobs. The financing consequences of possible UI program changes should also be estimated, as should the macroeconomic impact of broadening recipiency. UI program features which would promote flexible and extended labor force participation by older workers should also enrich the employment choice environment for other workers. Therefore, it would be useful to examine the impact of such program changes on UI as a built-in stabilizer of aggregate expenditures. While younger workers are usually committed to long-term participation in the labor force, older citizens are often more flexible in choosing to use their time. Worsening labor shortage conditions in the United States mean that efforts to retain older workers in the labor force will intensify. The current and potential influence of UI on the income security and labor force participation of older workers should be well understood.unemployment, insurance, compensation, older, workers, O'Leary, Wandner

Performance-Based Financing: Report on Feasibility and Implementation Options Final September 2007

This study examines the feasibility of introducing a performance-related bonus scheme in the health sector. After describing the Tanzania health context, we define “Performance-Based Financing”, examine its rationale and review the evidence on its effectiveness. The following sections systematically assess the potential for applying the scheme in Tanzania. On the basis of risks and concerns identified, detailed design options and recommendations are set out. The report concludes with a (preliminary) indication of the costs of such a scheme and recommends a way forward for implementation. We prefer the name “Payment for Performance” or “P4P”. This is because what is envisaged is a bonus payment that is earned by meeting performance targets1. The dominant financing for health care delivery would remain grant-based as at present. There is a strong case for introducing P4P. Its main purpose will be to motivate front-line health workers to improve service delivery performance. In recent years, funding for council health services has increased dramatically, without a commensurate increase in health service output. The need to tighten focus on results is widely acknowledged. So too is the need to hold health providers more accountable for performance at all levels, form the local to the national. P4P is expected to encourage CHMTs and health facilities to “manage by results”; to identify and address local constraints, and to find innovative ways to raise productivity and reach under-served groups. As well as leveraging more effective use of all resources, P4P will provide a powerful incentive at all levels to make sure that HMIS information is complete, accurate and timely. It is expected to enhance accountability between health facilities and their managers / governing committees as well as between the Council Health Department and the Local Government Authority. Better performance-monitoring will enable the national level to track aggregate progress against goals and will assist in identifying under-performers requiring remedial action. We recommend a P4P scheme that provides a monetary team bonus, dependent on a whole facility reaching facility-specific service delivery targets. The bonus would be paid quarterly and shared equally among health staff. It should target all government health facilities at the council level, and should also reward the CHMT for “whole council” performance. All participating facilities/councils are therefore rewarded for improvement rather than absolute levels of performance. Performance indicators should not number more than 10, should represent a “balanced score card” of basic health service delivery, should present no risk of “perverse incentive” and should be readily measurable. The same set of indicators should be used by all. CHMTs would assist facilities in setting targets and monitoring performance. RHMTs would play a similar role with respect to CHMTs. The Council Health Administration would provide a “check and balance” to avoid target manipulation and verify bonus payments due. The major constraint on feasibility is the poor state of health information. Our study confirmed the findings of previous ones, observing substantial omission and error in reports from facilities to CHMTs. We endorse the conclusion of previous reviewers that the main problem lies not with HMIS design, but with its functioning. We advocate a particular focus on empowering and enabling the use of information for management by facilities and CHMTs. We anticipate that P4P, combined with a major effort in HMIS capacity building – at the facility and council level – will deliver dramatic improvements in data quality and completeness. We recommend that the first wave of participating councils are selected on the basis that they can first demonstrate robust and accurate data. We anticipate that P4P for facilities will not deliver the desired benefits unless they have a greater degree of control to solve their own problems. We therefore propose - as a prior and essential condition – the introduction of petty cash imprests for all health facilities. We believe that such a measure would bring major benefits even to facilities that have not yet started P4P. It should also empower Health Facility Committees to play a more meaningful role in health service governance at the local level. We recommend to Government that P4P bonuses, as described here, are implemented across Mainland Tanzania on a phased basis. The main constraint on the pace of roll-out is the time required to bring information systems up to standard. Councils that are not yet ready to institute P4P should get an equivalent amount of money – to be used as general revenue to finance their comprehensive council health plans. We also recommend that up-to-date reporting on performance against service delivery indicators is made a mandatory requirement for all councils and is also agreed as a standard requirement for the Joint Annual Health Sector Review. P4P can also be applied on the “demand-side” – for example to encourage women to present in case of obstetric emergencies. There is a strong empirical evidence base from other countries to demonstrate that such incentives can work. We recommend a separate policy decision on whether or not to introduce demand-side incentives. In our view, they are sufficiently promising to be tried out on an experimental basis. When taken to national scale (all councils, excepting higher level hospitals), the scheme would require annual budgetary provision of about 6 billion shillings for bonus payments. This is equivalent to 1% of the national health budget, or about 3% of budgetary resources for health at the council level. We anticipate that design and implementation costs would amount to about 5 billion shillings over 5 years – the majority of this being devoted to HMIS strengthening at the facility level across the whole country

Jackson, Mississippi Agricultural Event: Update

Memorandum briefing Mondale-Ferraro team on agricultural issues prior to a campaign event in Jackson, Mississippi.https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/vice_presidential_campaign_materials_1984/1009/thumbnail.jp