theconversation.com (18.03.2025) The Medicaid system has emerged as an early target of the Trump administration’s campaign to slash federal spending. A joint federal and state program, Medicaid provides health insurance coverage for more than 72 million people, including low-income Americans and their children and people with disabilities. It also helps foot the bill for long-term care for older people. In late February 2025, House Republicans advanced a budget proposal that would potentially cut US$880 billion from Medicaid over 10 years.

Vanguard News (17.03.2025) In a strategic move to expand Nigeria’s  social protection safety net, the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF, has announced a partnership with the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ.

voxdev.org (21.01.2025) Women in Mexico who switched to digital cash transfers face higher costs and time accessing payments but gain bargaining power. Improving ATM access, reducing fees, providing timely information on the date of transfers and boosting financial literacy could mitigate these challenges.

cnbc.com (09.03.2025) By 2030, a quarter of Singaporeans will be 65 or over — in 2010, the figure was one in 10. Artificial intelligence is set to play a “huge” role in elderly care in Singapore, said Chuan De Foo, a research fellow at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. But the use of technology must be balanced with human caregiving, said Dr Han Ei Chew, a research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, describing a “high tech, but high touch” approach.

CEPR (24.02.2025) As governments worldwide grapple with labour shortages and systemic budget shortfalls, the question arises of how unemployment insurance policies potentially contribute to this imbalance by increasing and extending nonemployment. This column argues that recent debates around unemployment insurance reform, which often focus on the effect among job seekers, overlook potential unintended consequences among the employed. Taking moral hazard among employed workers into account has substantial effects on the welfare implications of unemployment insurance.

worldbank.org (31.01.2025) Advances in technology have the potential to enhance social protection services delivery but come with risks, such as data privacy concerns, exclusion, and biases. To use digital technologies effectively, strong frameworks, infrastructure, and capacity are essential. Without these, technology may inadvertently harm rather than benefit the intended populations. Technology can improve access, outreach, training, monitoring, and secure payments, among others, but risks must be managed by clearly defining roles and responsibilities among stakeholders.

ilo.org (03.02.2025) At the global level, mutuals primarily focus on providing complementary or supplementary coverage to basic health schemes. Only a small number of countries incorporate mutuals and community-based health insurance (CBHI) into the architecture of their basic health coverage systems. This working paper explores various country experiences where mutuals and CBHI contribute to basic health coverage within national social protection systems.

Euractiv (03.03.2025) Poland intends to use its presidency to promote European solutions in digital healthcare transformation while working towards establishing common standards for medical data at the EU level. Along with healthcare digitalisation, prevention, mental health and combating disinformation were also discussed. Healthcare digitalisation in Poland is an area that may be of interest to the European Union.

The Lancet Public Health (23.03.2025) Artificial intelligence (AI) can rapidly analyse large and complex datasets, extract tailored recommendations, support decision making, and improve the efficiency of many tasks that involve the processing of data, text, or images. As such, AI has the potential to revolutionise public health practice and research, but accompanying challenges need to be addressed. AI can be used to support public health surveillance, epidemiological research, communication, the allocation of resources, and other forms of decision making.

Euronews (13.02.2025) In many European countries, pension income is significantly lower than pre-retirement earnings from work. This makes it difficult for many older people to maintain their standard of living after retirement. Nearly one in six pensioners are at the risk-of-poverty in the EU, with the rate increasing from 12% in 2013 to 15.5% in 2023. So, how do pensions compare to pre-retirement work income across Europe?