Description: This is a regular column highlighting articles of interest to Health Actuaries appearing in the North American Actuarial Journal.

Description: Article is about a new course developed in actuarial science taught at Columbia University. Course covers traditional health actuarial projects but is expanded to cover issues for a health insurance company executive (e.g., CEO, CFO, etc.). The course also includes studying of other international healthcare systems plus healthcare reform (PPACA). Students were involved in research projects, including healthcare reform and international health systems. Students also had to teach a course as part of their final exam.

Description: This article provides a detailed description of the unbalanced subsidy provisions in the Affordable Care Act with easy to follow numerical illustrations. An understanding of the illustrative calculations is necessary to understand the subsidy implications. The article highlights some surprising and likely unintended results that will be interest to issuers, employers, consumers, regulators and policymakers. Actuaries can add expertise to their clients and to the public discussion with a proper understanding of the subsidy calculations and the resulting implications.

Description: Many executives are talking about predictive analytics uses in health insurance.

Description: The Behavioral Finance subgroup of the Health Section will be publishing a series of literature reviews in Health Watch. This is the first review of three in the series. The reviewed article describes an attempt to place an econometric value on consumers’ preferences between broad and narrow networks.

Description: This article discusses the challenges and unknowns relating to the regulatory inclusion of pediatric dental benefits within the essential benefits list of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Description: This article contains excerpts from the first three articles that were released through the strategic initiative - Commercial Health Care: What’s Next?

Description: Discussion regarding who's to blame for cost increase, Government's role to ensure coverage and keep costs down, steps to control costs, plan design changes. Issue No. 47.

Description: The editors of Health Watch have made health care reform the focus of the Sepctember 2009 issue, and provide an introduction to the issue's contents.

Description: A letter from me introducing this issue.