Description: Republicans have promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act for years. Now that they have power, what will Republican health care reform look like?

Description: Essay discussing that the two factors that affect healthcare cost are costs and the fact that people lack coverage.

Description: Updates on the efforts of the Academy’s health practice council. its work groups and task forces, to educate health care policymakers on issues including principles for reform, Medicare, the individual insurance market, and risk factors.

Description: Discussion about career events for an actuary working on health care reform

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: This article includes a summary of 2012 Health section activities as well as upcoming events, including the Health '12 Meeting, two HARI research projects (ACOs and risk adjustment), the value of health section membership, and our Canadian Outreach.

Description: This session is about the Health insurance has become an important issue in this year's presidential election campaign. What effect will this have on the likelihood of major health-care reform, on public expectations about rights to health care, about perceptions of health insurers, etc? From Record of Society of Actuaries Vol. 18, No. 4A.

Description: Discusses effect of allowing companies to sell health insurance policy in any state, if approved in one state, without requiring approval in any other state.

Description: The medical scheme approach adopted by several African countries has failed to meet the needs of those in informal employment and rural communities. This is partly due to affordability amongst these individuals as well as a lack of awareness of how healthcare financing products work. Community based healthcare organisations have achieved greater levels of success in this regard by carefully incorporating the peculiarities of communities in benefit design and involving community members in the management of these healthcare solutions. There are lessons to be garnered from the countries where these have been implemented with some level of success. Even as countries aim towards universal health coverage, observing the unique needs of different communities within a country is essential to ensure resources are utilised efficiently and that healthcare needs are targeted effectively.