Description: Stakeholders in a specific state (Minnesota) were interviewed about the potential value -- and obstacles -- of a catastrophic backstop program to handle long term care (LTC) financing needs. The design would entail a payroll deduction which would produce a fund to pay LTC expenses once a deductible period (of 1 to 4 years, depending on income) was reached. This design was believed to encourage enrollees to cover the front end better than done today, whether by private insurance or other means.

Description: An overview of health care history and privatization developments in four Latin American countries: Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil.

Description: This presentation is an open forum from the 1991 Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held June 3-5 in Colorado Springs. The panelists debate on who should pay for medical care for the uninsured, and how it should be financed. The debaters represent advocates of private, voluntary, and cooperative private state solutions and state or government intervention to finance health care for the uninsured. Discussion from participants is included. From the Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 17, No. 3B.

Description: This study was sponsored by the Society of Actuaries Health Section. This paper explores the relative significance of aging as a determinant of financial cost of health care beyond age 50, with particular attention to the effect for ages 65 and older. The paper presents concepts of aging factors and aging curves, which define relative values between ages for utilization or cost of health care services. General conclusions are drawn from Medicare data that utilization and cost differ by age, but that aging factors vary across services and may be less significant at very old ages. The author then turns to the question of measuring the significance of an aging curve assumption and what accuracy is lost in the simpler alternative of a single value across an age range.

Description: The SOA’s research objective is to provide guidance to state exchange officials and administrators, federal officials and administrators, and actuaries assisting states and health plans. The goal of the project is to estimate the morbidity and/or cost for newly insured individuals in the individual market (and to some degree, the small group exchange) relative to the morbidity and/or cost for the current commercially insured population. This analysis will primarily focus on the individual, non-group market. In order to plan for the impact that these currently uninsured individuals will have on the health insurance markets, it will be important to understand their costs relative to the costs for people already enrolled, for whom many health insurers have experience and data.

Description: A call for essays issued by the SOA Health and Long Term Care Sections on the visions for the future of the U.S. health care system.

Description: This discussion presents a few comments on the legislative situation with regard to health care for the aged in the United States. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1961, Vol. 13, No. 37.

Description: The article describes the sessions that the SIPF section sponsored - Paid Family Leave and Medicare and Medicaid Update. The Paid Family Leave session described what it is and what states it is currently in and how it is being implemented. The Medicare and Medicaid update gave the attendees the most up to date news about what is going on at the Federal level.

Description: A preview of the latest issue, with articles covering reverse mortgages, the challenges of long-term care policy in France, and the impact of obesity and diabetes on LTC disability and mortality.

Description: Praise and critisicm of ERISA. Items affecting ERISA The Patient Access to Responsible Care Act of 1997 PARCA, Consumer Bill of Rights, Expansion of Portability and Health Insurance Coverage Act of 1997 EPHIC. Issue No. 35.