Description: A report analyzing the cost of care for deceased cancer patients over the last six months of life.

Description: Panelists discuss major reforms of health care financing and delivery systems around the world. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

Description: This article outlines what the author learned from the Sixth Annual Quality Colloquium at Harvard. From Health Watch, January 2008, Issue No. 57.

Description: This session making health care more affordable through health care reform, changes to tax policy, and managed care. From Record of Society of Actuaries Vol. 18, No. 4B.

Description: In this presentation, Richard D. Lamm, former Governor of Colorado and currently Director of the Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues at the University of Denver, talks about the increasing costs of health care and why the miracles of American medicine have simply outpaced our ability to pay. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries Vol. 17, No. 3A.

Description: The panel examines the forces underlying health plans and health carriers profit performance. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 1, Session 39

Description: The medical and behavioral health care provider communities have long debated whether high-quality behavioral health care reduces medical costs. This presentation from Session 85PD of the SOA 1996 Colorado Springs Meeting reviews past studies relating to medical cost offsets and explores the potential magnitude of such design and delivery of medical and behavioral health care programs to encourage potential health care cost savings and to increase wellness. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 22, No. 2.

Description: CHCS is a nonprofit policy center focused on improving American health outcomes, particularly for low-income people, including payment & delivery system reform.

Description: This analysis provides an overview of the functional components of the managed care system. It discusses the market forces underlying the United States’ system for health care financing and delivery and suggests how market forces impact the health care industry. The analysis focuses on societal goals for health care delivery and on managed care’s effectiveness in enabling achievement of those goals. The analysis develops and uses an innovative model developed to summarize the complex interplay among the many stakeholders, or participants, in the health care system. The model provides a framework for analysis of the many relationships among stakeholders. The analysis also highlights current issues in managed care, particularly the barriers that impede collaboration among stakeholders.

Description: Ian Duncan argues that there is no crisis in American health care.