This week, we are reading updates on Life Insurance activity from MIB Life Index and reviewing the 2016 National Health Expenditures release from the CMS Office of the Actuary.
U.S. Life Insurance Activity Turns Positive in November Reports the MIB Life Index | MIBGroup.com | December 6, 2017
U.S. individually underwritten life insurance activity turned positive in November with the MIB Life Index composite up 1.2%, year-over-year. The composite’s jump was largely driven by application activity in the 0-44 age group (> 56% of the Index by volume) with November showing the largest percent gain of the year, up 2.3%, year-over-year.
Read the full update on MIBGroup.com here.
CMS Office of the Actuary Releases 2016 National Health Expenditures | CMS.gov | December 6, 2017
In 2016, overall national health spending increased 4.3 percent following 5.8 percent growth in 2015, according to a study by the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published today as a Web First by Health Affairs. Following Affordable Care Act (ACA) coverage expansion and significant retail prescription drug spending growth in 2014 and 2015, health care spending growth decelerated in 2016. The report concludes that the 2016 expenditure slowdown was broadly based as growth for all major payers (private health insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid) and goods and service categories (hospitals, physician and clinical services, and retail prescription drugs) slowed in 2016.
Read a summary and get a link to the full report on CMS.gov here.