Description: This article contains excerpts from the first three articles that were released through the strategic initiative - Commercial Health Care: What’s Next?

Description: Evaluation of Taiwan's National Health insurance program and a discussion of a managed competition model to reform it.

Description: A summary of pathology, risk factors, treatments, public health issues, and economic costs of Alzheimer's Disease.

Description: This article talks about the challenges facing the FDA, especially those arising from the globalization of the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Description: Mental health spending has reached $147 billion in the United States with demand only increasing greatly impacting society as nearly 1 in 5 experience these issues. There are even more indirect costs associated with mental health causing a national crisis surpassing 1 percent of the GDP. These costs coupled with the severe lack of licensed clinicians calls for an innovative solution. Through years of development and completion of a randomized controlled trial, Prevail has built and validated a low-cost, scalable solution. Prevail's clinically proven digital mental health treatment provides increased access to care while reducing overall health costs. Private and public payors should being reimbursing this model and offering it to their members.

Description: Summary of results of a 2010 Health Section survey of actuaries and Medicare population, on ways to bend the cost trend curve downward. Issues included transparency, quality measures, fraud and abuse, provider payment, malpractice, medical errors, consumer education, and the pros and cons of employer-sponsored coverage.

Description: Shannon Brownlee shares her perspectives on the current health care crisis, including: inconsistent treatment patterns across providers and geographic regions, providers lacking evidence-based guidelines, the need for better independent clinical research to establish those guidelines, and the limits to consumerism's potential to fix the crisis.

Description: Panelists discuss key aspects of recent and pending laws and the cost and design implications on group health plans. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

Description: This session is about regulatory constraints and the role the NAIC is playing to help facilitate 24-hour programs, plan design issues, the use of managed care, coverage as part of a workers' compensation plan versus coverage of health care outside of the workers' compensation system. From Record of Society of Actuaries Vol. 18, No. 4A.

Description: This article compares the Prescription Drug Plan (PDP) market to the commercial individual market exchanges included in the Affordable Care Act. PDP carrier actions to date could help predict certain aspects of the exchange market.