Description: This article discusses the pros and cons of high speed electronic transfer of medical data, and the implications this technology may have on health actuaries.

Description: Summary of testimony by an AAA Board member before a congressional subcommittee, as an expert on risk assessment and adjustment, especially in relation to Medicare risk contracting and HMO payments. She recommended: mitigating the geographical region values, credibility weights for payments to health plans, carving out high cost claim segments, reengineering the ACR methodology, shifting AAPCC methodology from fee-for-service toward competitive bidding, and further projects to improve risk methods.

Description: Full version of The Actuary Newsletter Volume 33, Number 1 - January 1998

Description: Full version of The Actuary, February 1997, Vol. 31, No. 2.

Description: This article is a response to a lighthearted article from "The Onion" newspaper about the world death rate.

Description: This article discusses the media attention received when Al Easton, as 1997-1999 Futurism Section council chair, coordinated a study of the section members and asked the members to forecast future events in members' practice areas. The study utilized the Delphi technique, which assembles a group of experts and polls them on the same questions in up to four rounds of surveying. Each time, the previous round's answers are revealed so the experts can consider their next responses in light of their peers' views. From: The Actuary, January 2000, volume 34, issue 1.

Description: This articles describes how actuaries can contribute to the understanding of the financing of Medicare and the urgency of its problems.

Description: This article discusses the new Kassebaum-Kennedy bill a.k.a. HIPPA and looks at future of individual health insurance plans, which will be determined at the state level.

Description: For more than two years, 'The Actuary' has received more articles and letters on Social Security than on any other single topic. Given actuaries’ interest in analyzing financial situations and the extensive public debate on Social Security worldwide, the subject’s prominence among actuaries is easily understood. To offer more SOA members a forum for their views, editors of the September 1998 issue included a survey asking members’ opinions on five statements related to possible U.S. Social Security reform. The survey drew 1,067 responses, representing 6.6% of the membership, by the Oct. 31, 1998, deadline. This article summarizes the results of that survey.

Description: Among the most outspoken of the life insurance industry’s authorities is Ronald Butkiewicz, president and CEO, Irish Life of North America ILONA. In speeches to industry groups, including a 1995 presentation to the Actuarial Society of Greater New York, Butkiewicz makes the challenging statement, 'American society doesn’t need the life insurance industry. I am also quick to add that I don’t think American society needs banks, either.' However, said Butkiewicz in an interview for this article, 'It does need our products.' The article goes on to explain how Butkiewicz sees life insurance becoming part of one, big financial services industry.