Description: The Canadian public health care delivery system continues to experience growing needs for increased funding. The total health care delivery system today costs Canadians $98 billion a year or about 9.7 percent of GDP. Of that total cost, 71 percent is paid by the government, which means the taxpayers. While that may pale in comparison to the costs in the U.S., it does make the Canadian system one of the five most expensive health care delivery systems in the world. While today’s cost pressures are of major concern, of even more concern are the costs being projected by many participants in the current health care debate for the period when the Baby Boom makes higher demands on the Canadian health care delivery system. Traditional projection methods, however, do not differentiate between the elderly who survive the year versus those who die as to their use of health care systems. This paper first looks at the impact that this differentiation could have on projected costs. Second, the paper looks at the impact that the wide use of Advance Directives [also called Living Wills] might have on future health care costs and some of the issues surrounding their use. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 2004, Vol. 1.

Description: This document provides key findings from the 2007 Risks and Process of Retirement Survey related to health and long-term care risks in retirement.

Description: This 1991 panel discussion is about delivering adequate universal health coverage. The panelists discuss the Canadian national health care system, Oregon's plan to seek a Medicaid waiver to implement a new format within which health care will be reimbursed, and the American Medical Association's [AMA's] Health Access America reform proposal. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries Vol. 17, No. 4A.

Description: This study used commercial data held by the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) and Medicare fee-for-service data to analyze health care cost differences by age and their contribution to overall health care cost change. The commercial data includes claims from 2002 through 2010 and the Medicare data includes claims from 2006 through 2010.

Description: This is an Excel spreadsheet showing Appendix C, Primary Tables of the 2008 Valuation Basic Report and Tables. The full report describes the development of the 2008 Valuation Basic Table. It incorporates the Primary Tables, the Relative Risk Tables and the Limited Underwriting tables. Please see the SOA website experience studies for the full report and other related tables.

Description: This fact sheet provides an overview of the Long-Term Care and Middle Market report.

Description: As carriers have learned over the last two decades, Long-Term Care insurance (LTCi) is a risky business. The intent of this paper is to illustrate how these risks can be better understood through modeling the liabilities using a Monte Carlo simulation approach.

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: The objective of this project is to summarize the existing literature on end of life issues of interest to actuaries, and to document a broad list of such articles. The end of life issues explored are multi-dimensional and from multiple perspectives. When considering cost implications of end of life care, it is necessary to consider cost in a broad context as it is a measure that cannot solely be defined by dollars. Other dimensions of cost, such as quality of care, family care giving, communication, patient preferences and access to care, should also be explored.

Description: Using the Delphi method, this study explores the opinions of various Long-Term Care experts and stakeholders on a wide range of LTC financing issues and potential solutions.