Description: The essay discusses the appropriate role of insurance companies, efficient and economical ways to care for chronic illnesses and having a maximum price society will pay to support the ongoing life of any one individual.

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: This is an article explaining the options employers have under the Medicare Part D, or the Prescription Drug Improvement and Medicare Modernization Act - MMA - that took effect in January 2006. The article discusses 4 options under the MMA with the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Description: This article summarizes the presentations by the Society of Actuaries and the Academy of Actuaries at the January 2015 National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) Roundtables in Washington DC. SOA presented on the 2014 SOA monograph series "The Link between Retirement Security and Long-Term Care."

Description: This paper describes an actuarial methodology [adjusted average per capita cost - AAPCC] developed to meet the requirements of the risk contract that the medicare program makes available to certain health maintenance organizations. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1981, Vol. 33.

Description: A glossary of terms.

Description: While there are many issues in healthcare, the single most significant issue is cost, both in terms of the cost today and in terms of the growth in cost over the past several decades. We need to increase the ability of all citizens to purchase healthcare services or health insurance that in turn purchases healthcare services, and decrease the growth in the cost of healthcare.

Description: Essay offers a vision of health care where everyone is covered, everyone is eligible, receives fair pricing, receives vital information and is taxed the same.

Description: This is a panel discussion about social insurance programs for health care in Canada and the United States and new developments in benefits and costs of the programs.

Description: Panel discusses the effects of reduced payment levels to many Medicare managed care organizations. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.