| Independence Holding Company Announces Acquisition of Actuarial ...
STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 2, 2007--Independence Holding Company (NYSE: IHC) today announced that it has closed on the previously announced acquisition of Actuarial Management Corporation ("AMC"). AMC is a leading, full-service actuarial firm headquartered in Concord, CA that focuses on fully insured health coverage for small groups, individuals and families, short-term medical and employer medical stop-loss. AMC is responsible for all actuarial aspects of IHC's entire book of fully insured health business, but will remain an independent business unit providing services and resources to clients outside the IHC Group of Companies. AMC's team of 19 professionals has extensive experience providing clients in the health insurance industry with development and management services, underwriting and benefit design review, data reporting, compliance support and strategic and tactical management services.
Type of content: VENDOR WHITE PAPER
Mobile wireless communications are now a major piece of the enterprise telecommunications puzzle. It has become a business imperative for all companies. However, the costs and risks associated with mobile wireless communications are in an unrestrained spiral.
Management of mobile wireless communication can be bifurcated into 1) expense management, and 2) access management. Today, management solutions address mobile wireless management separate from other enterprise telecommunication management
solutions.
While there are numerous expense management challenges presented by mobile wireless communications, the more significant issue is the security risk resulting from information leakage posed by mobile access - devices and users accessing enterprise information resources.
Give children health coverage now; long-term reforms can wait ...
Gov. Ted Kulongoski urged Oregon lawmakers Friday to focus on his proposals to boost health coverage for children and working poor adults rather than divert their attention on more sweeping reforms. "We have to be careful not to overreach," Kulongoski said about proposals by former Gov. John Kitzhaber and lawmakers working on plans for universal health insurance. In a speech assessing progress so far by the 2007 Legislature, Kulongoski said he supports efforts at broader reform offered by Kitzhaber and by Sens. Ben Westlund, D-Bend, and Alan Bates, D-Ashland. But he said those long-term goals should not get in the way of his short-term fixes. "Let's solve, in this session, those pieces of the health care crisis for which there are attainable solutions," Kulongoski said.
Insurance Coverage, Medical Care Use, and Short-term Health ...
Context Given the large and increasing number of uninsured US individuals, identifying the health consequences of being uninsured has assumed increased importance. Objective To compare medical care use and short-term health changes among US uninsured individuals and insured nonelderly individuals following a health shock caused by either an unintentional injury or the onset of a chronic condition. Design, Setting, and Participants Multivariate logistic regression analysis of longitudinal data from Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys (1997-2004) limited to nonelderly individuals whose insurance status was established for 2 months prior to 1 or more unintentional injuries (20 783 cases among 15 866 individuals) and onset of 1 or more chronic conditions (10 485 cases among 7954 individuals).
Teens Get Needed Access To Care With State Health Insurance
When given health insurance through the state children's health insurance program (SCHIP), teens see their doctors more often, racial disparities are eliminated and more preventive care is received. This often-overlooked age group also received more counseling from their health care providers about guns, smoking, drugs, alcohol and sexuality - all issues that impact their long-term health.
"Adolescents have the worst access to health care among children," said Jonathan Klein, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of Adolescent Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center and author of a paper on the subject in this month's Pediatrics. "But when given access through the state children's health insurance program, or SCHIPs, they receive the preventive care that helps them grow into healthy adults."
The study surveyed about 1,000 adolescents and their parents shortly after enrollment in New York's SCHIP program, Child Health Plus, and again a year later.
The Arbiter with the Golden Scepter: A Theory of Government
"In competitive market societies, the flow of novelty and innovation undermines existing conventions, habits, and institutions of commitment. It reinforces a bias for the short term. To secure commitment, people accept a great deal of voluntary restraint and even compulsion...voters have narrowed their own freedom of choice and surrendered control of their futures to social agencies...Government is the commitment agent of last resort, and frequently first resort as well." -- Avner Offer, The Challenge of Affluence I differ with Avner offer. He views exercise of government power as a good thing. He wants government to Stop Me Before I...smoke...or...forego health insurance...or...turn into a spendaholic. In this essay, I will offer a theory of how government arises.
Health Class With Professor Obama
The biggest knock on Barack Obama is that he's short on substance. This comes from his opponents, like John Edwards, who says it in public, and from Hillary Clinton supporters, who say it in private. Columnists have been writing it and writing it. A waitress in Des Moines, Iowa, summed his candidacy up this way to me a couple of weeks ago: "Too much fluff." Obama did not help himself at a health-care forum in Las Vegas last month. While his opponents outlined specific proposals, he twice told questioners that on this issue so important to his party's primary voters, his campaign was still developing a plan. But putting out detailed white papers isn't the only way to show your substance. Obama likes to strut his policy stuff by playing the professor. After 10 years teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago and several before that running meetings as a community organizer, he's highly skilled at talking to an audience in a way that exposes his knowledge.
Insurance Industry Struggling to Meet Heightened Data Management ...
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Insurance and Actuarial Advisory Services (IAAS) practice of Ernst & Young LLP today announced highlights from its third Actuarial TransformationTM Roundtable, a forum in which senior insurance executives discuss key issues, challenges and best practices. The roundtable uncovered growing concerns around the governance and management of the increasing amount of data the industry is required to maintain, particularly in light of enhanced financial reporting requirements. A survey of participants revealed 88% of attendees agree that, "data management issues currently impact the ability to provide reliable, valid financial data." At the same time, more than half (56%) say they do not have a dedicated data governance team in place and 67% do not have a formal data management program.
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