Wellness programs: complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Employers that offer wellness programs must be careful to comply with the guidelines of ADA. As the dollar amounts involved in these programs and the number of participants increase, so does the risk of lawsuits.     

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): An emerging challenge to accounting education

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA; 1990) opens an academic door on two levels which will affect the way we provide educational services. First, employment practices for staff and faculty will require a review. Second, there will be more disabled students in our classroom. This article summarizes relevant provisions of the ADA and offers recommendations for compliance. A significant issue considered is faculty employment practices. Each of the three typical performance areas of faculty activity (research, service, and teaching) are examined. The Act also creates a new environment for instruction for the students. Access to the classroom, office hours, examination locations, research facilities, computer labs, etc., must be made available in a manner that is normally provided for all students. This article presents a graphic paradigm providing a structure for evaluation of the institutional and instructional impacts.     

Consumer-centered vs. job-centered health insurance

Most employees and their dependents in the United States have health insurance provided by the employer or labor-management health and welfare fund. In this system, employees and their families lose their health insurance when the breadwinner loses his or her job while, at the same time, a Medicaid beneficiary can lose Medicaid eligibility by getting a job, even a poorly paid one. Most health insurance pays the doctor on the basis of fee-for-service and the hospital on the basis of cost-reimbursement, rewarding both with more revenue for providing more and more costly services. The insured employee has little or no incentive to seek out a less costly provider. There are no rewards for economy in this system. It should be little wonder, then, that health care costs are out of control. There are alternative financing and delivery systems with built-in incentives to use resources economically, but, the author of this article asserts, their ability to compete and attract patients with their superior economic efficiency is blocked by many laws and government programs. The author believes that the most effective and acceptable way to get costs under control, and at the same time achieve universal coverage, would be through a system of fair economic competition. He discusses his Consumer Choice Health Plan proposal and describes how one of the main barriers to competition is today's system of job-linked health insurance.     

The shifting value of federal deposit insurance: Implications for reform

This research examines the relationship between the value of federal deposit insurance and bank size. We conclude that the value of deposit insurance has often been greater for the largest bank-holding companies since 1981. This differential is consistent with the notion that largest banks have greater ability to circumvent regulatory and/or market discipline. The source of this differential appears to be due to holding less capital rather than greater asset risk. Insurance costs net of the value of deposit insurance are also relatively lower for the largest banks and have become more so since 1981. These results suggest that recent proposals to improve the deposit insurance system should be evaluated based on their ability to effect even-handed discipline throughout the banking industry to eliminate and forestall further creation of this large institution bias.     

机动车交通事故共同侵权损害赔偿中的保险责任研究

机动车交通事故共同侵权行为表现为意思关联型和行为关联型两种。在两辆以上的投保机动车发生交通事故共同侵权时,若干保险公司的赔偿责任怎么承担?较为合理的思路是:多家保险公司在责任限额内对一个受害人承担赔偿责任时,要遵循比例责任和有限连带的一般规则,以实现以人为本、损害补偿的侵权责任法的价值追求。     

Innovation, public choice and public control in the market for health insurance.

Innovation, public choice and public control in the market for health insurance/benefits in the United States are largely dependent upon the ability of the various stakeholders to successfully argue their positions with legislators, regulators, providers, purchasers and third party beneficiaries. Given the public/private nature of health benefits, these relationships are examined in a Stigler/Posner/Peltzman public choice framework. Conflicts among various stakeholders and their ability to influence innovation in the market for health benefits are discussed.     

Accident settlement for avian influenza in travel health insurance

Among those infectious diseases that lead to insurance settlement for damages, we normally list those cases that do not involve person-to-person transmission, but rather those cases wherein the harmful agent enters the body without the intention of the person harmed, and which causes acute infectious disease or food poisoning. This is the way in which, for example, tick-borne encephalitis following an insect bite, rabies caused by animal bites, and acute food poisoning contracted in restaurants or from public catering arise. We can also list among the latter those cases of avian influenza illness, which arise through the involuntary consumption of infected animal meat (not ignoring occupational health and safety regulations). These insurance cases arise particularly when travel to countries with a high level of infection of livestock with avian influenza is involved. In these cases of illness, there is justification for including an accident indemnity payment--in addition to covering the costs related to health care--within the remit of travel health insurance.     

我国健康保险产业链研究

我国健康保险业发展已有20多年历史,在构建医疗保障体系中发挥了积极的作用。但是,由于医疗服务本身的特殊性以及我国医疗体制的复杂性,商业健康保险在发展中牵涉多方利益,尤其是保险公司在与健康保险产业链上的两个关键主体,即医疗机构和社会医疗保险经办机构,存在合作困难的问题。本文拟针对这三方不完全利益共同体,建立一个合作稳定度模型,分析各主体受其他主体和动态因素的影响。本文的结论支持健康保险产业链的发展形式,并在此基础上针对国家支持、保险业监督管理和产业链核心主体的措施提出了建议。     

The interplay between risk adjustment and risk rating in voluntary health insurance

Many regulated health insurance markets include risk adjustment (aka risk equalization) to mitigate selection incentives for insurers. Empirical studies on the design and evaluation of risk-adjustment algorithms typically focus on mandatory health insurance schemes. This paper considers risk adjustment in the context of voluntary health insurance, as found in Chile, Ireland, and Australia. In addition to the challenge of mitigating selection by insurers, regulators of these voluntary schemes have to deal with selection by consumers in and out of the market. A strategy for mitigating selection by consumers is to apply some form of risk rating. Our paper shows how risk adjustment and risk rating interact: (1) risk rating reduces the need for risk adjustment and (2) risk adjustment reduces premium variation across rating factors, thereby increasing incentives for consumers to select in and out of the market.     

美国《金融服务现代化法》隐私条款述评及启示

美国1999年颁布的《金融服务现代化法》第五章中设立了有关保护客户隐私的条款,尽管美国国内的金融机构和消费者对此条款质疑不断,但对我国仍具有借鉴意义。     

美国《21世纪支票清算法案》的借鉴与启示

由于以纸质为基础的票据清算系统对交通的依赖和过高的清算成本,使得美国银行界呼吁新的电子化方式以取代传统的支票清分方式。将于2004年10月28日生效的美国《21世纪支票交换法案》适应了金融电子化的发展,将会对支票清算产生深远的影响。中国的银行业应在加快现代化支付系统建设的同时,借鉴该法案的有关规定和做法。     

商业健康保险在医疗保障体系中的角色探讨

商业健康保险绝不仅仅是社会基本医疗保险有限的、简单的补充,而应该成为我国医疗保障体系中必不可少的重要组成部分。在这样的制度定位下,本文分别探讨了商业健康保险主要承担的三种角色,即补充保障的主要提供者、基本保障的主要竞争者、医疗保险机构与卫生服务提供者关系的探索者。