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: Conditions and required solvency standards of federal waiver to PSOs to provide Medicare+Choice products. Effect on providers, beneficiaries and employers. Issue No. 36

Description: This section describes the basic methodology and assumptions used in the estimates for the HI trust fund under the intermediate assumptions. In addition, projections of HI and SMI costs under two alternative sets of assumptions are presented. From Pension Section news, September 2004, Issue No. 56.

Description: Article from The Actuary, June 1971 – volume 5 - Issue 6 reviews the Advisory Council on Social Security's 1971 report on Social Security and Medicare.

Description: Summarizes two Social Security Administration Actuarial Notes by the author. One compares actual experience under the Medicare program for the first full year of operation with the cost estimates that were made early in 1965. The second analyzes the annual death rates of the United States population aged 65 and over, before and after Medicare, for fiscal years 1961-68.

Description: This article discuss the historical regulation and changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule - MPFS.

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 article focuses on mandatory supplemental benefits offered by general enrollment plans and Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans (D-SNPs) Medicare Advantage plans from 2017 to 2021.

Description: Congress has been debating a revision to Medicare Advantage payments including limiting payments to the Medicare Fee-For-Service FFS cost. A county-specific impact study to the benchmark payment rates for each county nationally based on the FFS limitation criteria was performed. This article includes results for Florida, California, Pennsylvania and New York.

Description: Two Medicare risk funding provisions that were radically changed by the BBA of 1997 funding variations by geographic area and risk adjustment. Issue No. 36