Description: This paper discussed providing consumers of medical care with transparent and comparable price and quality information to enable them to make economically optimal decisions.

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 essay highlights a view that many have for meeting these goals is one of a two-tiered system. The first tier in this system is a universal one controlled by the federal government, while the second tier is a private sector supplementing the first tier. The remainder of this paper will examine this two-tiered system and how various stakeholders in today’s system will be affected.

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 project shows how to use agent-based models to simulate the behaviors of agents in complex health systems.

Description: This session is about structuring an HMO, rating, financing & solvency and underwriting. From Record of Society of Actuaries 1979 Vol. 5, No. 4.

Description: Implications of Consumer-Driven Health Care to consumers, employers and providers Issue No. 37.

Description: What’s New in Disease Management Medicare Modernization Act, certification of DM outcomes, DM publications. Issue No. 48

Description: This article is an overview of preliminary research on HSAs and Account-Based Health Plans. The summary reviews enrollment, health status, premiums and account information. From Health Watch Newsletter, September 2006, Issue No. 53.

Description: This article provides an introduction to comparative health policy for developed, developing and third-world countries. From Health Watch News, September 2006, Issue No. 53.