Description: The author gives his opinions of the cause of the health care financing crisis and ever increasing health care costs.

Description: The 1977 Amendments to the Social Security Act provided for a one-time National Commission on Social Security with broad mandate to study the OASDI and Medicare programs. The author discusses the substantial proposals put forth by the Commission in its report released in January 1981, which would affect both OASDI and Medicare.

Description: By definition, actuaries are preeminent in making actuarial analyses. Nevertheless, in some areas, such analyses can be adequately performed by persons from other professions, such as economists and statisticians. This article describes the misuse of life expectancy data by the Heritage Foundation when they 'calculated' that low-income, single African-American males born after 1959 face a negative rate of return from Social Security. Unfortunately, this misinformation was widely disseminated through the news media and Web sites.

Description: This is a short version of a memorandum to the Commissioner of Social Security and other government officials addressing misuse of actuarial cost estimates.

Description: Reports on recent month-end fund balances in the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance funds. They had been facing a great financial crisis recently and now are in much better financial condition.

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: 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: The book review states 'This monograph provides an independent overview of the assumptions and methodology behind the OASDI estimates made by the Social Security Administration. Such information has heretofore been available only in the annual reports of the Board of Trustees of the OASDI Trust Funds, in the Actuarial Studies issued by the SSA and in writings by individuals closely associated with the system.'

Description: This is an article about retirement age and life expectancy. The article compares the normal retirement age and life expectancy in Germany and the United States.

Description: These are comments made by a past president of the SOA in regards to an article written by Jean Sasseville reviewing the World Bank Policy Research Report.