Description: Essay recommending establishing a consistent and actuarially sound foundation for assessing the costs and benefits of each and every current and new Medicare or other healthcare proposal.

Description: While there are many issues in healthcare, the single most significant issue is cost, both in terms of the cost today and in terms of the growth in cost over the past several decades. We need to increase the ability of all citizens to purchase healthcare services or health insurance that in turn purchases healthcare services, and decrease the growth in the cost of healthcare.

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: This session discussed about expected trends in medical care costs, changes in Medicare reimbursement practices and their short- and long-term effects, the emerging responsibility for providing long-term care, rise of managed health care, new and old participants, selection issues, multiple options, and small group market.

Description: The editors of Health Watch have made health care reform the focus of the Sepctember 2009 issue, and provide an introduction to the issue's contents.

Description: Updates on the efforts of the Academy’s health practice council. its work groups and task forces, to educate and influence health care policymakers on issues including principles for health care reform, Medicare, wellness programs, and solvency.

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: Overview of Medicare's 1979 financial projections under optimistic, pessimistic, and intermediate assumptions, for the Hospital Insurance and Supplementary Medical Insurance programs.

Description: Essay reforming healthcare where participants have a vested interest in reaching the best answer.

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.