Description: A review of the 2009 Health Spring Meeting, which included speakers & sessions on the future of the SOA, U.S. health care reform, claims data issues & improvements, predictive modeling, underwriting principles, employer stoploss, cost trends, LTD & disability, and mental health parity regulations.

Description: This article provides an overview of the Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA) model act, and of enterprise risk management (ERM). Compared to other actuarial disciplines, health actuaries have not historically focused as much on ERM. But health coverages do have risks that can threaten an insurer's solvency, and ORSA (now in force in most states) will force health insurers to beef up their ERM capabilities.

Description: Shannon Brownlee shares her perspectives on the current health care crisis, including: inconsistent treatment patterns across providers and geographic regions, providers lacking evidence-based guidelines, the need for better independent clinical research to establish those guidelines, and the limits to consumerism's potential to fix the crisis.

Description: The Affordable Act's risk corridor program is a temporary feature that applies to individual and small group QHPs from 2014 through 2016. Designed to protect insurers against pricing uncertainty, the program appears straightforward but has many subtle consequences. In this article, we review the need for risk corridors, the calculation itself, and the implications that result.

Description: A report on the proceedings of the June 2010 SOA health meeting. Leading topics included health care reform, opportunities to expand actuaries' roles, the global financial crisis, and collaboration with other organizations.

Description: These past two years have been the most challenging of my professional career, and I’m certainly not unique in this regard. Fortunately, I’ve benefited from a little help from my friends in the actuarial community—no one sticks together like actuaries.

Description: An economics professor and a health care consumer advocate weigh in on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including implementation issues, directions for the future and what role actuaries shoudl take.

Description: Rick Foster, chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services discusses public policy