Description: This article describes Singapore's Central Provident Fund and how it involves government, employers and employees in a cooperative partnership for mandatory savings and investment to assist with the primary lifetime goals of home ownership, medical care and retirement provision.

Description: Stakeholders in a specific state (Minnesota) were interviewed about the potential value -- and obstacles -- of a catastrophic backstop program to handle long term care (LTC) financing needs. The design would entail a payroll deduction which would produce a fund to pay LTC expenses once a deductible period (of 1 to 4 years, depending on income) was reached. This design was believed to encourage enrollees to cover the front end better than done today, whether by private insurance or other means.

Description: CHCS is a nonprofit policy center focused on improving American health outcomes, particularly for low-income people, including payment & delivery system reform.

Description: Overview of public health (responsibilities, funding, challenges) and discussion of the role actuaries can play in achieving population health goals.

Description: Article on the history of the Long Term Care Discussion Group, a Washington DC-based venue for discussing long-term care and related issues for over 20 years.

Description: An overview of health care history and privatization developments in four Latin American countries: Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil.

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: The article describes the sessions that the SIPF section sponsored - Paid Family Leave and Medicare and Medicaid Update. The Paid Family Leave session described what it is and what states it is currently in and how it is being implemented. The Medicare and Medicaid update gave the attendees the most up to date news about what is going on at the Federal level.

Description: Praise and critisicm of ERISA. Items affecting ERISA The Patient Access to Responsible Care Act of 1997 PARCA, Consumer Bill of Rights, Expansion of Portability and Health Insurance Coverage Act of 1997 EPHIC. Issue No. 35.

Description: Preview of the LTC section's sessions at the SOA Annual Meeting in October 2008, including claims management, litigation and public relations, preparing for PBA and stochastic modeling, pricing, research studies, and securitizations and reinsurance.