Constructing a Basefile for Simulating Kunming's Medical Insurance Scheme of Urban Employees
Focusing on China’s medical insurance scheme which covers all employers and employees in urban areas, this research aims to assess the distributional impacts of medical insurance policies and to predict medical expenses by using microsimulation techniques. As an important part of the project, this article provides a brief overview of China’s medical insurance reform of urban employees and detail the techniques and processes to construct a basefile in 2005 for projecting the medical expenditures for urban employees over the period of 2006-2010. The main data used are administrative medical records of medical insurance participants provided by the Bureau of Labour and Social Security of Kunming, Yunnan Province. Along with the initial analysis for the raw datasets and age processing and adjustment for the individual records, monthly income information was imputed and personal savings accounts were established for each individual record. Important modelling parameters such as death rates and income adjustment factors were constructed. Furthermore, this article identifies medical insurance for government officials by using the combination of logarithm curve fitting and binary discriminant analysis. Based on this basefile, a static microsimulation model can be built to assess the implementation effects of the medical insurance policy and analyse the impact of the medical insurance scheme on urban employees.
Modelling our future : population ageing social security and taxation
Introduction and Overview Part I Pension Analysis Using Dynamic Microsimulation PART II Taxes, Benefits and Labour Supply Part III Wealth and Services
The Impact of EU Unfair Contract Terms Law on U.S. Business-to-Consumer Internet Merchants
When the Court of Appeals for Versailles issued its decision in AOL France v. UFC Que Choisir2 in September 2005, it sent the message to U.S. Internet businesses that even contractual boilerplate localized for European markets may be invalid in European consumer transactions. In that case, a French consumer advocacy group challenged the terms AOL offered its French customers after AOL had made extensive revisions to its standard form contracts to respond to the concerns regarding those terms expressed in an advisory opinion by a French consumer protection agency. In 2004, a trial court invalidated nearly every term in the revised agreement; the appeals court affirmed on all counts. Subsequently, in July 2006 following concerns raised by the Office of Fair Trading (“OFT”), a United Kingdom government agency charged with “making sure markets work well for consumers,”3 Dell Corporation Limited changed its online terms and conditions to make them fairer to consumers.4 European consumer contract law had an impact in both cases. At issue for AOL France and Dell Corporation Limited was the application of France’s and the UK’s consumer contract law which is based on the Unfair Contract Terms Directive of 19945 and calls into question the validity of many of the terms that U.S. courts routinely enforce in transactions involving American consumers and merchants.