Description: Panel discusses a variety of current issues in the senior health-care marketplace, including the effects of current, pending, and proposed Medicare changes. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 25, No. 3.

Description: Panelists discuss emerging valuation-actuary-related issues, including: [1] for long-term-care insurance [LTCI], reserves, risk-based capital [RBC], and new experience forms, [2] for Medicare Part D, several potential future changes, and [3] for health insurance in general, the new Statement of Standard Accounting Practice 85 [SSAP 85] and existing SSAP 84, and current activities of the International Accounting Standards Board [IASB] regarding a definition of 'insurance.' Session 27PD of the 2005 Valuation Actuary Symposium.

Description: Discussion of state medicaid expansion due to provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

Description: Essay stating accessibility, affordability and efficiency are the key to success in the future of healthcare.

Description: COVID-19 is causing changes to nursing homes that will last beyond the pandemic. Nursing homes serve Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries; so, in the public interest, we should consider how changes to nursing homes might impact these populations.

Description: Essay discussing cost, quality and access of healthcare and then describes the need for rationing.

Description: This is an article explaining the options employers have under the Medicare Part D, or the Prescription Drug Improvement and Medicare Modernization Act - MMA - that took effect in January 2006. The article discusses 4 options under the MMA with the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Description: This study was sponsored by the Society of Actuaries Health Section. This paper explores the relative significance of aging as a determinant of financial cost of health care beyond age 50, with particular attention to the effect for ages 65 and older. The paper presents concepts of aging factors and aging curves, which define relative values between ages for utilization or cost of health care services. General conclusions are drawn from Medicare data that utilization and cost differ by age, but that aging factors vary across services and may be less significant at very old ages. The author then turns to the question of measuring the significance of an aging curve assumption and what accuracy is lost in the simpler alternative of a single value across an age range.

Description: A glossary of terms.

Description: In an effort to reform how health care is delivered and paid for, value-based programs are intended to incentivize providers to focus on the quality of care, rather than the quantity of care, that they provide for their patients. Medicare has been a leader when it comes to tying payment to value. This session will provide an overview of some of the payment and delivery system reforms that exist in Medicare today. It will evaluate early indicators of improvement in patient outcomes and reduction in medical costs. Finally, it will explore the future direction of the major programs offered directly through CMS and through the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation. his session is intended to meet the needs of actuaries who are focused on value- based design and/or Medicare.