Description: An update on HMO market trends and reinsurance products, and services supporting them.

Description: A review of the 2009 Health Spring Meeting, which included speakers & sessions on the future of the SOA, U.S. health care reform, claims data issues & improvements, predictive modeling, underwriting principles, employer stoploss, cost trends, LTD & disability, and mental health parity regulations.

Description: This article presents a view of health care as an economic system, suggests a framework for classifying current criticisms of the system, and offers references for further reading.

Description: Excellent big picture view for planning a social insurance system with pay-as-you-go, required self-funded, and voluntary plans.

Description: A review of product and sales trends for variable, indexed and fixed annuities against the current backdrop of low interest rates and record equity market valuations

Description: The article makes reference to how the intervention by government agencies and institutions into the financial marketplace are creating distortions. This artificial tampering into market mechanisms will likely result in major financial dislocations down the road as natural economic forces (coined by the term "invisible hand") eventually are allowed to come into play.

Description: A summary of the Global Trends 2030 report, the fifth such report produced every four years by the National Intelligence Council. The report is based on the research and analysis of the 17 major intelligence agencies in the US. The summary covers the highlights of the report.

Description: While some people proclaim the imminent triumph of renewable energy, this article argues that fossil fuels will continue to be part of the energy mix.

Description: Panel discussion exploring likely future scenarios, encompassing: Balance between state and federal regulation, effects of trends in tax regulation, and implications of all-federal or all-state regulation. From Record of the Society of Actuaries Vol. 12, No. 2.

Description: An overview of the issues behind reimbursing providers on a bundled or packaged basis. The article presents the potential advantages offered by the proponents as well as the criticisms and obstacles to implementing this type of payment system.