Description: This is an editorial warning about the escalating costs of Medicare as outlined in the 1983 Annual Report of The Board of Trustees of The Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund. The editorial ends with a question asking what the actuarial profession, and its members individually, ought to be doing that they aren’t already doing?

Description: Panelists discuss key aspects of recent and pending laws and the cost and design implications on group health plans. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

Description: This article reviews the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act and the impact the legislation has had on Medicare Supplement plans, policies and the changes to the model regulation. From Health Section Newsletter, March 2005, Issue No. 49.

Description: Updates on the efforts of the Academy’s health practice council. its work groups and task forces, to educate health care policymakers on issues including principles for reform, Medicare, the individual insurance market, and risk factors.

Description: Summarizes two Social Security Administration Actuarial Notes by the author. One compares actual experience under the Medicare program for the first full year of operation with the cost estimates that were made early in 1965. The second analyzes the annual death rates of the United States population aged 65 and over, before and after Medicare, for fiscal years 1961-68.

Description: Discussion of the implications of the newly unveiled health care reform proposal by Senator Baucus. Key issues include abandonment of the CLASS Act, inclusion of LTC in cafeteria plans, funding and tax concerns, individual mandate, privacy concerns, play-or-pay employer mandate, impact on Medicare and Medicaid, and gridlock in the legislative finalization process.

Description: Member benefit newsletter for the Social Insurance and Public Finance Section of the SOA.

Description: This article describes the basic methodology and assumptions used in the estimates for the SMI trust fund under the intermediate assumptions. From Pension Section News, September 2004, Issue No. 56.

Description: Strategies to position Medicare Advantage plans for success during August resubmission.

Description: Discussion of recent laws and regulatory changes that have provided Medicare Advantage plans greater flexibility in benefit offerings and plan designs.