Description: Full version of Risks and Rewards Newsletter, October 2002, Issue No. 40.

Description: Healthcare costs have been rising faster than general inflation for many years. Early models that predicted this past pattern projected healthcare expenditure growth that continued to outpace total expenditure growth leading to the fallacious position that the whole of the US economy would ultimately be consumed by healthcare. This paper presents a long term healthcare trends resource model, prepared for the Society of Actuaries by Professor Thomas Getzen, that includes capacity constraints to ensure the long-term projection is rational. The motivation for creation of the model was driven by its potential usage as a resource for the estimation of reportable liabilities for retiree healthcare benefits as specified under FAS 106 and GASB 45 accounting statements.

Description: Full version of Risks & Rewards Newsletter, August 2005, Issue No. 47.

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: 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 summarizes a roundtable discussion moderated by Anna Rappaport. The purpose of the roundtable was to discuss a model of personal investing known as the Life–Cycle Model of Investing and Saving. This model is concerned with how individuals can find ways to smooth their consumption so that they have a roughly similar standard of living across different periods of time.

Description: Introductory comments for the 2008 ERM Monograph

Description: Overview for the 2009 ERM Monograph paper describing the goal of the call for papers – provide a forum for the latest in ERM thinking and move forward principle-based research.

Description: Recognizing an opportunity to help serve its members in this age of increased financial oversight, the Health Section of the Society of Actuaries commissioned a series of guides on the use of statistical techniques specifically geared for the work of health actuaries. The first guide in the series titled, 'Statistical Methods for Health Actuaries - IBNR Estimates: An Introduction,' is about the calculation of incurred but not reported [IBNR] health claims reserves. In particular, the guide focuses on the development of confidence intervals around IBNR estimates. This is an Excel workbook created to demonstrate the techniques discussed in the guide.

Description: Healthcare costs have been rising faster than general inflation for many years. Early models that predicted this past pattern projected healthcare expenditure growth that continued to outpace total expenditure growth leading to the fallacious position that the whole of the US economy would ultimately be consumed by healthcare. The Society of Actuaries' Pension Section and Health Section Research teams commissioned Professor Thomas E. Getzen of Temple University to construct a resource model for the projection of long term healthcare cost trends that includes capacity constraints to ensure the long-term projection is rational. The motivation for creation of the model was driven by its potential usage as a resource for the estimation of reportable liabilities for retiree healthcare benefits as specified under FAS 106 and GASB 45 accounting statements. This is a zip file containing the following: 1. A background paper on the creation of the health trend model, 2. The model, programmed in Microsoft Excel [xls format], that projects per-person expenditures and growth rates through 2099 using baseline assumptions, but also permits the flexibility for user–inputted alternative assumptions, and 3. Technical documentation providing transparency and support for the ultimate results.