A new international Task Force was launched and met for the first time earlier this month to tackle the global shortage of healthcare workers. With a shortfall of 4.3 million healthcare workers worldwide, including more than 1 million in Africa alone, there is an urgent need to increase the number of doctors, nurses, health managers and other healthcare workers needed to face immediate health crises.

Rep. Tom Massey is hoping to find a better way to increase the number of small businesses that offer insurance for their workers.

It is our supposition that underwriters in the 21st Century are uniquely positioned to benefit from these dynamics by taking advantage of technology and outsourcing solutions to help manage the stresses caused by fluctuating volume cycles and the ever increasing impact of staffing challenges. 

Lifestyle modification products like these are one of the newest trends in the health insurance industry. Only a few dozen companies now offer them. But expect to hear more about them soon, possibly in your own workplace.

A missing word in a bill analysis derailed debate Monday on a bill to cover more youngsters under the Children's Health Insurance Program. A sharp-eyed Rep. Robert Talton, R-Pasadena, noticed the error in the analysis of House Bill 109 -- the word "family" was missing.

Comprehensive federal healthcare reform would more effectively cover the uninsured, according to a report released Monday, but the more piecemeal approach involving states is more likely to make it into law, some experts warn.

University of Pennsylvania sociologist Beth Soldo, an early wave baby boomer, wasn't seeking potentially ominous news about the health of her generation, but it was staring her in the face.

There were 6,196 living-organ donors last year, and Friedberg wasn't alone in his financial losses. The recipient's health insurance typically pays for the donor's medical costs such as the surgery and various pre- and post-op tests, but donors are on their own for the rest: travel expenses for the numerous trips to the hospital, nearby hotel rooms before and after procedures and wages lost while they recuperate.

While the Internet has become an integral part of the lives of most Americans, researchers say the nation's eldest residents largely have been left out. Nearly 75 percent of the American population is online, but less than a third of those over age 70 have ever used the Internet, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

A congressional probe into tax fraud by physicians, suppliers and other Medicare providers may lead to changes in how the program pays contractors and could expand into a wider inquiry into whether other individuals and institutions doing business with Medicare also abused the tax system.

More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease, a 10% increase since the last Alzheimer's Association estimate five years ago -- and a count that supports the long-forecast dementia epidemic as the population grays.

The House Appropriations Committee Monday backed a $19.4 billion midyear spending plan, which runs through June 30, that would pump an extra $81 million into PeachCare. The program provides health insurance to about 300,000 children of working poor families.

Community Health Systems Inc. agreed to pay $5.1 billion for Triad Hospitals Inc., outbidding a private equity group to create the biggest publicly traded US hospital company.

Leaders of the business community and major health insurers called yesterday for the state to delay for two years, until July 2009, the requirement that all residents have health insurance that meets state standards.

Expanding government health insurance coverage to all Americans could reduce healthcare spending by as much as $60.7 billion a year, according to a study by a nonpartisan research center.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is hoping to complete legislation to expand children's health-insurance coverage by late spring -- but a field of competing bills is already starting to bloom.

A Chinese woman who spoke only Mandarin was in continuous pain March 10 at Corona Regional Medical Center. The anxious patient needed to communicate with internal medicine physician Philip Hagan, but a Mandarin-speaking interpreter could not be located.

Some parties decry mandating that employer health coverage must include certain items. But the mental health parity bills before the Legislature do not require that mental health be included. Rather, they establish that if an employer elects to cover mental health, this coverage cannot be singled out for discriminatory restrictions compared to other coverage under the policy.

Young adults between the ages of 19 and 34 comprise almost 17 million people in America today. In Connecticut, there are approximately 64,000 people in this age category. Many of our young adults have one major thing in common: they typically choose to go without health insurance.

The program is up for renewal, and depending on what Congress decides, enrollment in the program, which is not currently capped, may become so.

And a planned expansion of the Wyoming program to include uninsured parents, authorized by the Wyoming Legislature last year, is currently up for approval by the feds and also could get the ax.

Rory O'Brien of White Plains is president and owner of RPO Group Inc., an employee benefits brokerage and advisory firm in White Plains. He said HSAs can be good for people who are self-employed or high-wage earners, but not necessarily for the average employees in a group plan or for the health-care system in general.

Small businesses don't have the bargaining power of larger employers and have seen their health care premiums increase as much as 40 percent in recent years.

It's Kennedy versus Kennedy as two members of Congress from the same family face off over competing versions of legislation that would require many health insurance companies and employers to provide more generous benefits to people with mental illness.

For nearly two decades, Donna Fraiche has been a cheerleader for a biomedical research center that would rise in the neighborhood around New Orleans' two medical schools and become a mighty economic force like similar enterprises in Birmingham, Ala., and Houston.

Less than 1% of Medicaid spending went to healthcare for illegal immigrants, according to a study that the researchers said defied a common belief that they are a bigger drain on taxpayer money.