Description: Analysis of data from three Medicaid managed care plans examines enrollment and cost trends for newly eligible enrollees under the ACA's Medicaid expansion.

Description: Discussion of direct primary care and how it helps with several challenges in health care today. DPC improves care coordination, improves outcomes, improves doctor and patient satisfaction, and reduces spending. DPC successes promote the view that primary care should not be covered by insurance; rather, it should be paid for directly.

Description: The author explores and argues against the “evolution of thinking” and the position that actuarial thinking is a blend of all three modes of thinking, as discussed by Dave Ingram in the February/March 2012 issue of The Actuary.

Description: The article discusses the sustainability of the ACA individual market from a public entitlement standpoint. A key point of measuring sustainability is the reliance on market forces rather than federal budget constraints. The article explains why an actuarial viewpoint of sustainability is necessary to a greater extent than other public assistance and social insurance programs. The article challenges actuaries to be a bold, objective voice in a space that is full of opinionated but often uninformed viewpoints.

Description: Actuaries can serve an important role by exploring modeling and data analysis techniques to discover predictive patterns and relationships.

Description: This article contains a condensed summary and excerpt from the fourth white paper in the Commercial Health Care: What’s Next? series.

Description: A recent study sheds light on the measurement and implications of the relationship between increased morbidity and declining disability. The results were not consistent across all populations. This study of the compression of morbidity is part of a wider project called the M-project, led by the four authors, which aims to explore the demographic factors leading to an increase in the adult longevity, investigate the phenomenon called the compression of mortality and develop a new methodological approach to longevity analysis with focus on the modal age at death M.

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.