Annual Meeting and Public Policy Forum Concludes

• The Academy’s Annual Meeting and Public Policy Forum took place in Washington this week. Attendees heard keynote addresses from former Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius, National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) CEO Ben Nelson, and Nora Super, executive director of the 2015 White House Conference on Aging. Other highlights:
• The Academy presented awards to Stephen Kellison, who received the Jarvis Farley Service Award for a quarter century of volunteer service to the profession; and Ronald Gresch, who was honored with the Robert J. Myers Public Service Award for his exemplary service in analyzing and communicating about public benefit and insurance programs upon which millions of Americans rely through his work as senior health actuary with the Office of Personnel Management.
• Outstanding Volunteerism Awards were presented to David Neve, Donna Novak, Robert J. Rietz, and Stephen Strommen.
• Mary D. Miller assumed the office of Academy president, following poignant remarks from outgoing President Tom Terry.
• Expert plenary panels on cross-practice issues. Our international session examined the implications of international developments on U.S. actuarial practice, with panelists Kevin McCarty, Florida insurance commissioner; Roy Woodall, Financial Stability Oversight Council; and Thomas Sullivan, Federal Reserve Board. A professionalism plenary explored the potential reach of the prohibitions against insider trading and steps members can take to manage the potential risks posed by their interactions with public employees, with panelists Steve Salky, Zuckerman Spaeder; and Stephen Cohen, Division of Enforcement, Securities and Exchange Commission.
• Breakout sessions were held for each practice area (life, health, casualty, pension), including the release of the first assessments grading retirement-income systems and proposals using the Academy’s “Retirement for the AGES” framework.
• In total, the Annual Meeting and Public Policy Forum offered the opportunity to earn up to 12.2 organized activity continuing education (CE) credits and 1.5 professionalism CE credits.
• A more in-depth recap of the annual meeting will be forthcoming soon. And mark your calendars now for the 2015 Annual Meeting and Public Policy Forum, which will be held Nov. 12-13, 2015, in Washington.

Reminders

• The Actuarial Standards Board (ASB) is requesting member feedback on the second exposure draft of a proposed new actuarial standard of practice (ASOP), Principle-Based Reserves for Life Products. The ASB would like comments on such issues as whether the distinction between the company’s responsibility and the actuary’s responsibility is clear; whether the language of the ASOP quotes or summarizes VM-20 text appropriately and usefully; and whether it is sufficiently clear how the ASOP applies to actuaries who do not sign the PBR actuarial report but are involved in the preparation of principle-based reserves.

  In addition, feedback on a proposal to develop an ASOP that would apply to actuaries when pricing new and in-force life insurance and annuity products is open for comment as well. The request for comment can be viewed here.

  The comment deadline for both documents is Dec. 15.

Opportunities to Learn

• Professionalism webinar on the updated ASOP No. 6. The May 2014 update of ASOP No. 6, Measuring Retiree Group Benefits Obligations and Determining Retiree Group Benefits Program Periodic Costs or Actuarially Determined Contributions, included a number of changes that have practical implications for actuaries. Join the Academy’s professionalism team for a Nov. 24 webinar, “The New ASOP 6: Does Your Actuarial Work Measure Up?” The webinar will provide an overview of the changes, review aspects of the U.S. Qualification Standards, and explain how data recently made available by the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) pertain to the new requirements for developing age-specific costs.

Recent Events

• The Academy’s sold-out Life and Health Qualifications Seminar took place in Arlington, Va., this week. The seminar is the most efficient way to acquire the required basic education and continuing education to be qualified to sign NAIC annual statement actuarial opinions. Former Academy President Cecil Bykerk opened the seminar, now in its 14th year, noting that “the adoption by Congress of the Affordable Care Act will have repercussions on health care reserve and pricing calculations for many years, and our tremendous faculty, as Academy volunteers, continue to review its implications for NAIC health reserve filings and incorporate such materials into the seminar.”

Public Policy Activities

• The Medicaid Work Group sent a comment letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on the introduction of Sovaldi and other new Breakthrough Therapy Designation medications and their potential impact on Medicaid costs. The letter “outlines various options for mitigating the uncertainty regarding future expenses, within the requirement of developing actuarially sound Medicaid capitation rates.”
• The Medicare Supplement Work Group submitted a report on the Medicare Supplement Rate Refund Formula to the NAIC’s Medicare Supplement Refund Formula Subgroup. The recommendations for potential modifications to the refund formula will be discussed at the fall NAIC meeting in Washington on Saturday.
• The Reinsurance Committee sent comments to NAIC on the Uniform Application Checklist for Certified Reinsurers exposure draft.

Newly Released Publications

• The Actuarial Standards Board (ASB) has published the final 2014 edition of its newsletter, ASB Boxscore. Read about updated applicability guidelines; a newly adopted revision of ASOP No. 35, Selection of Demographic and Other Noneconomic Assumptions for Measuring Pension Obligations; and what each of the ASB’s committees accomplished in 2014.

Academy In the News

• Politico’s coverage of the 2014 Annual Meeting and Public Policy Forum’s opening keynote speech focused on former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ remarks on the future of state Medicaid expansion. “There are a bunch of brand-new governors, and there are also people who I think wanted to get through their election cycle and now will take a new look at this,” Sebelius said. Academy President Tom Terry and Secretary Sebelius were shown together in this video clip of the event taken by Fox News. A subscriber-only article in Inside Health Policy scrutinized the role of the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and the consequences of repeal of the mandate.
• A Brookings Institution blog post on its recent event, “Better Financial Security in Retirement? Realizing the Promise of Longevity Annuities,” mentions Senior Pension Fellow Don Fuerst, who served as a panelist. Video and a downloadable podcast of the event are available in the Academy’s Newsroom.
• Modern Healthcare reached out to Audrey Halvorson, chairperson of the Rate Review Practice Note Work Group, for an actuarial perspective in a story exploring changes in 2015 premiums for plans offered in ACA exchanges. “There is still a lot of uncertainty of what the costs are going to be,” Halvorson said, noting insurers had little hard data on which to base their 2015 rates.
• Senior Health Fellow Cori Uccello was mentioned in a McKnight's Long Term Care News story examining the use of hospital observation status as a method of qualifying Medicare patients for skilled nursing service coverage. Current rules require a Medicare beneficiary to spend three days as a hospital inpatient, not counting time spent in observation, to qualify for skilled nursing service coverage.
• An opinion piece on Moneynews.com mentions the Solvency Committee’s June 5 letter to Congress supporting passage of the Insurance Capital Standards Clarification Act of 2014.

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