An informational analytics initiative from the Concerned Actuaries of the United States
Our Mission: Provide full, accurate, and easily understood analyses of the financial realities affecting the funding and security of our nation's public finance and social insurance programs. These programs include federal, state, and local retirement, healthcare, and other publicly funded social entitlements dependent on long-range planning and advance funding.
The Society of Actuaries (SOA), an organization representing more than 34,000 members around the world announced today that it’s prestigious Spotlight for Societal Purpose Award has been awarded to Mr. Mark Litow, FSA, of Wisconsin for his role as one of the founder’s of the non-partisan Concerned Actuaries of the United States (CAUS) and for development of the foundational CAUS’ Comparative Actuarial Assessment Model (CA2M), a predictive holistic analytical tool designed to help policy-makers and other decision-makers evaluate the probability of success for proposed changes to the nation’s social insurance and public finance programs.
A comprehensive actuarial analysis using the Comparative Actuarial Assessment Model (CA2M) reveals that without significant policy changes, rural America faces an accelerating healthcare crisis. The study projects that healthcare costs in rural areas will rise more sharply than in urban regions while access to care deteriorates at alarming rates. With rural populations aging faster, earning 20-25% less than the national average, and facing growing provider shortages, the resulting health status decline is directly undermining economic productivity and the viability of rural communities themselves.
In this recent conversation with Jim Wood, strategic counsel to CAUS, Litow shares the origin story of the Concerned Actuaries, delving into the challenges facing the nation today. He emphasizes the necessity of interdisciplinary thinking and holistic solutions to tackle these complex problems, underscoring the importance of integrating principles from economics, medicine, and accounting to create sustainable and effective policies.
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In an effort to enhance public awareness and understanding, the Concerned Actuaries Group and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget co-hosted a series of expert presentations and conversations on the broader and more complex spectrum of issues that must be considered in the search for an equitable, sustainable American healthcare system.
The impact and after effects of the pandemic and Medicare’s increasingly apparent lack of fiscal sustainability are putting both rural and urban Medicare enrollees at risk, but the situation in rural areas is deteriorating at a significantly faster pace that can legitimately be described as a crisis for rural seniors, their families and their communities.
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