Description: Feature article discussing actuaries’ view of the perfect health care reform package with an emphasis on funding/financing. Part 4 of a 4-part series.

Description: The author provides an overview of the Chinese health care system from its beginnings in in 1949 to the present day launching of the most comprehensive reform ever.

Description: This paper provides an outline of three potential initiatives that may be undertaken by the government and the private sector. The first initiative aims at reducing the cost of health care at the provider level. The second initiative provides a means to improve the quality of health care. The third initiative creates a constructive basis for identifying medical best practices to enhance quality.

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: An article in which Robert Laszewski, a Washington health policy strategist, tells us, actuarial science has never been more important to our country.

Description: This essay discusses the long overdue effciencies that would improve the quality of healthcare in the United States.

Description: Discussion of recent developments in the taxation of noncoordinated benefits such as fixed indemnity, hospital indemnity, and specified disease insurance policies. Developments include a recent Chief Counsel Advice Memorandum and proposed triagency rulemaking that would impact non coordinated benefits.

Description: This article provides an overview of the key provisions and impacts of the Affordable Care Act's Cadillac Plan Excise Tax.

Description: Developing a formal strategy to guide the SOA’s activities with respect to public policy-related topics is underway. Recent experience shows that non-partisan contributions through the SOA’s research are already adding value to important public policy discussions.

Description: Rhode Island’s unique “global Medicaid waiver” pursues a potentially dangerous national policy trend: long-term care LTC rebalancing without strong eligibility controls. Resulting cost overruns could seriously damage the state’s social safety net. To maximize the global waiver’s opportunity, minimize its danger, and become a LTC financing model for the country, policy makers need to recognize the issues discussed in this report and pursue the recommended additional research and analysis.