Description: Remarks on the attitudes underlying the stalling of health care reform legislation.

Description: A proposal to reform current health care market, from a 'preferred payer' system, in which Medicare and Medicaid pay less than the true cost while others must then pay more, to a 'value for money' system. This would be achieved by requiring providers to bill all patients the same rate for the same services, with a standard bundling format to make all providers' rate differences transparent. Differences between billed charges and what Medicare pays would be made up by the Medicare patient, rather than subsidized by those outside of Medicare.

Description: A proposal to address provider payment issues by gradually moving to accountable care organizations. Capitations would be risk-adjusted, non-capitated costs would be covered by hospitalization fund and stoploss, incentives for quality & effective preventive care would be tied to the amount remaining in the fund, and government involvement would be through incentives rather than mandate.

Description: Feature article from the January 2010 issue of In The Public Interest discussing the need for actuarial leadership in the reform of the U.S. health care system.

Description: Panel discussion of prospects for cost containment of, and alternatives to, fee-for-service health care, and management of health care under national health insurance. Discussion points include cost containment devices, HMOs, economic impact, cost escalation, self-insurance, stop-loss, claims administration, loss of state premium taxes, and Phase 3 tax problems under NH1.

Description: Why is it that two competent actuaries making reasonable assumptions can arrive at very different conclusions when evaluating the impact of proposed health care reforms? Are the answers really as different as they appear to be on the surface? This presentation from Session 137IF of the SOA 1996 Orlando Annual Meeting outlines and highlights some of the key actuarial issues that arise in the course of these analyses. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 22, No. 3.

Description: Panelists discuss issues arising from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 1.

Description: Panel covers a variety of current issues in the Medicare supplement marketplace, including the impact of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Issues affecting both managed care and traditional Medicare supplement are discussed. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 3.

Description: The Society of Actuaries, the SOA Pension Section, the Conference of Consulting Actuaries and the American Society of Pension Actuaries are contributing funds in support of efforts to get the actuarial profession more involved in modeling that addresses national retirement income policy and health care reform. The first project will be a feasibility study to analyze each major existing database/model and investigate whether it would be practical to access it or to extend it into a new macrodemographic model.

Description: This is a summary of topics discussed at the 1996 Bowles Symposium: “The Old Age Crisis: Actuarial Opportunities,” September 26-27, 1996, at Georgia State University, Atlanta.