Description: September 2009 issue of Health Watch.

Description: Summary of the health section council’s research project to assess the accuracy of commonly used IBNR estimation methods over a wide range of scenarios.

Description: The editors preview the articles in the February 2010 issue of Health Watch.

Description: An actuary's 30-year career, from working for several major consulting firms, to leading his own firm, to becoming a sole-practitioner consulting actuary.

Description: A proposal to reform current health care market, from a 'preferred payer' system, in which Medicare and Medicaid pay less than the true cost while others must then pay more, to a 'value for money' system. This would be achieved by requiring providers to bill all patients the same rate for the same services, with a standard bundling format to make all providers' rate differences transparent. Differences between billed charges and what Medicare pays would be made up by the Medicare patient, rather than subsidized by those outside of Medicare.

Description: A proposal to address provider payment issues by gradually moving to accountable care organizations. Capitations would be risk-adjusted, non-capitated costs would be covered by hospitalization fund and stoploss, incentives for quality & effective preventive care would be tied to the amount remaining in the fund, and government involvement would be through incentives rather than mandate.

Description: Realizing the impact of medical errors on the U.S. health care system, the Health Section commissioned a research project to measure the annual frequency of medical errors and their total measurable direct and indirect cost to the economy.

Description: This article discusses projects of the Heath Section Council.

Description: This article takes a comparative review on Medicare and Private Health Insurance and examines the cost of administration. From Health Watch Newsletter, May 2006, Issue No. 52.

Description: Article is about a new course developed in actuarial science taught at Columbia University. Course covers traditional health actuarial projects but is expanded to cover issues for a health insurance company executive (e.g., CEO, CFO, etc.). The course also includes studying of other international healthcare systems plus healthcare reform (PPACA). Students were involved in research projects, including healthcare reform and international health systems. Students also had to teach a course as part of their final exam.