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: The article explores how deeply the Affordable Care Act reduced the Medicare Advantage benchmark payment rates and quantifies how much of that reduction Medicare Advantage Organizations earned back through quality bonuses.

Description: This session is about the details of the inception and implementation of the Oregon Health Plan. From Record of Society of Actuaries Vol. 18, No. 1B.

Description: State Medicaid agencies have been implementing value-based payment (VBP) models for the last decade and are increasingly exploring advanced population-based payment (PBP) models that increase flexibility, predictability, and accountability for participating provider organizations. PBP models show promise in advancing Medicaid priorities, but are still in the early stages of development, and model design and implementation challenges remain. This article from the Center for Health Care Strategies explores the fundamentals of VBP and how PBP - a particular type of payment model - can help Medicaid agencies achieve goals related to care transformation and quality improvement, revenue stability, and controlling cost of care.