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AbstractSeparation from bed and board, and poverty constitute a dual threat to the maintenance of paternal commitment. Taking as a starting point the views of separated fathers living below the poverty line and who feel committed to their children, this study attempts to understand how fathers maintain this commitment to their child in the face of adversity. The participants describe various strategies that allow them to maintain their paternal role in a context where they have to deal with a combination of constraints and pressures resulting partly from the break-up, partly from poverty. This analysis brings out elements that appear to have encouraged them to pursue their paternal commitment. A greater understanding of what is at stake in such situations should help those involved to better reflect and act in such a way as to diminish the twin impoverishments that afflict their children: economic disadvantage and loss of a father, both of which are too often the consequences of marital breakdown.

This comparative paper analyses the disparity between Quebec and French Lawwith respect to compulsory insurance and highlights the importance attached tothe principle of contractual freedom in Quebec. The steadfast development andprotection of this principle in Quebec may be attributed to the influence of North-American capitalism and long-standing principles of both the Anglo-Saxon andNapoleonic legal traditions while, in France, an ever-growing trend towards thecollective protection of the public has overshadowed any individual right to contractualfreedom with respect to many activities. With 119 compulsory insurancestipulations forming an integral chapter of the French Code des assurances, onebegins to wonder whether Insurance Law in Quebec will follow suit. Could thisever occur? Should it? The legal repercussions of such a development (such as thecorrelative obligation to insure necessarily imposed on private insurance companies)are examined, as well as the current state of Quebec and French Law pertainingto compulsory insurance and contractual freedom. This Part One of a two-partseries deals entirely with French Law. Part Two, which deals with Quebec Law,will be published in the April 2006 issue.

In the United States, "Health Maintenance Organisations" (HMO) undertookto master the growth of the costs of the health. Numerous patients complainedabout the quality of the care under this regime and about limitations that HMOimposed on them, in particular in access to care. To the quality care issues underthis regime added the anxieties conceming patients' satisfaction. Has the formerdegraded under the regime HMO? On this subject, numerous studies compare thesatisfaction of the patients under the regime HMO to that of the patients in thetraditional System with "Fee-For-Service payment" (FFS). They also concern thevulnerable patients, such as the old or deprived persons, illustrating how difficultit is to measure of quality.

Keywords: Managed Care, HMO, patients, satisfaction, assurance, Managed Care, HMO, patients, satisfaction, insurance

The article depicts the evolution of Managed Care. A first part describes and evaluatesthe Managed Care experience in the U S. After a review of the major events thatled to Managed Care in the U.S., the paper expands on cost-control mechanisms,changes in the medical practice and their impact on patient's health. In the secondpart, the article proposes a theoretical interpretation of the development of HMOsbased on the cost transaction theory, and uses the W.H.O evaluation grid to outlinethe orientations of the U.S. health care system.

Keywords: HMO, soins gérés, mécanismes de contrôle des coûts, théorie des coûts de transaction, Managed Care, HMO, Cost-Control mechanism, cost transaction theory, Managed Care

ln our society, environmental problems hold more and more of a great importance. A very growing care in this regard concerns the ecological damage approach, that is the damage caused to the environmental areas and to the natural resources.This study is focusing two major difficulties: firstly to clearly define the ecological damage and secondly to determine reliable evaluation methods.The insurance industry, in regards to the needs of ecological damage indemnification, cannot itself bring an answer, but it could substantially contribute to the solutions of this major challenge of the next centuries.