Description: What you need to know about risk scores to be competitive in the Medicare Advantage market.

Description: This is an editorial warning about the escalating costs of Medicare as outlined in the 1983 Annual Report of The Board of Trustees of The Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund. The editorial ends with a question asking what the actuarial profession, and its members individually, ought to be doing that they aren’t already doing?

Description: This article summarizes the presentations by the Society of Actuaries and the Academy of Actuaries at the January 2015 National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) Roundtables in Washington DC. SOA presented on the 2014 SOA monograph series "The Link between Retirement Security and Long-Term Care."

Description: The moderator will review senior health products: Medicare supplement, Medicare risk, hospital indemnity policy HIP, cancer, accidental death AD, and employer continuance. Discussion will include product design, pricing, administration, regulation, and marketing. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 1.

Description: This article is the second in a two part series that summarizes a longer paper that can be downloaded from the website of the Social Insurance and Public Finance Section. Both articles take the form of a point-counterpoint dialogue addressing important aspects of social insurance programs. The first part discussed their nature, desirability and advantages, as well as whether they can form a framework to achieve sustainable inter-generational equity. This article focuses on whether pre-funding of a social insurance program can occur and can contribute to the financial security of the participants. Fundamental differences of opinion exist regarding these programs, not only due to different personal and political values, but also as a result of the viewpoint taken (for example, assessment of the program in isolation, consideration of the sponsoring government's financial situation, or the overall national economy).