Description: This research paper investigates health care costs in the last year of life. This paper looks specifically at the issues of measurement of retiree health care costs when the baseline healthcare costs are measured in terms of the last year of life costs and maintenance costs.

Description: Healthcare costs have been rising faster than general inflation for many years. Early models that predicted this past pattern projected healthcare expenditure growth that continued to outpace total expenditure growth leading to the fallacious position that the whole of the US economy would ultimately be consumed by healthcare. The Society of Actuaries' Pension Section and Health Section Research teams commissioned Professor Thomas E. Getzen of Temple University to construct a resource model for the projection of long term healthcare cost trends that includes capacity constraints to ensure the long-term projection is rational. The motivation for creation of the model was driven by its potential usage as a resource for the estimation of reportable liabilities for retiree healthcare benefits as specified under FAS 106 and GASB 45 accounting statements. This is a zip file containing the following: 1. A background paper on the creation of the health trend model, 2. The model, programmed in Microsoft Excel [xls format], that projects per-person expenditures and growth rates through 2099 using baseline assumptions, but also permits the flexibility for user–inputted alternative assumptions, and 3. Technical documentation providing transparency and support for the ultimate results.

Description: This panel discussion is from the 1991 Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held June 3-5 in Colorado Springs. The panelists discuss the future, if any, of defined-benefit pension plans, and whether they have been “legislated” out of existence, in particular the role of the Internal Revenue Service as the primary regulator of pension plans. From the Record of Society of Actuaries Vol. 17, No. 3B.

Description: This session discussion is about postretirement health benefit funding, corporate-owned life insurance COLI, trust-owned life insurance TOLl, settlement contracts, 401 h and pension plan asset transfers. From Record of Society of Actuaries Vol. 18, No. 1A.

Description: The focus of the webcast on Modeling Long–Term Medical Trends for Valuation Purposes was a discussion of the underlying methodology of the model, a walk through of the actual model, and a review of the considerations for its practical usage by actuaries. The running time of this video is 1 hour and 3 minutes. It is a presentation of slides without audio.

Description: Three universities are offering fall seminars to help students prepare for the November examinations.