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

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: 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: 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: 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: This article explores what American medicine might look like in the year 2000. The author asserts this will depend on the tradeoffs made between quality and availability on the one hand, and cost on the other hand.

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.

Description: The article gives actuaries an introduction to Academy Health, the notable health policy research organization.

Description: An overview of the Medicare Supplement landscape and the critical factors for successfully pricing and managing this product line amidst the challenges that exist.