The National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to promote informed policy-making on social insurance, devoted a session of its January 19–20, 2006, annual policy research conference to the problem of ensuring health insurance coverage for older workers.

Key Results

• Approximately 250 people attended, including congressional and executive branch staff, business and labor leaders, researchers, academics, and representatives of trade associations, membership organizations and the press.
• The session included four presentations:
  • "Disability and Retirement among Aging Baby Boomers," by Ralph Smith, Ph.D., (Congressional Budget Office). A PowerPoint presentation is available for download online.
  • "The Fraction of Disability Caused at Work," by Robert T. Reville, Ph.D., M.A., (RAND) and Robert F. Schoeni, Ph.D. (University of Michigan). Available online.
  • "New Evidence on Health Coverage for Aging Boomers," by Sara R. Collins, Ph.D., (Commonwealth Fund). A PowerPoint presentation is available for download online.
  • "Improving Health Coverage before Medicare," by Paul N. Van de Water, Ph.D., (National Academy of Social Insurance). A PowerPoint presentation is available for download online.

The Problem

The session, "Disability, Social Insurance, and Health Coverage at Older Ages," was organized as many of the traditional building blocks of retirement security were changing, including:

• The Social Security full-benefit retirement age was rising.
• Employers were cutting back on promised pensions and retiree health benefits.
• Americans will need to work longer to make ends meet in old age.

Funding

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) supported this project with an unsolicited grant of $29,000.

After the Grant

At the time the conference was held, the W.E. Upjohn Institute had plans to publish a book containing papers from the entire conference in 2007.

Project staff planned two follow-up projects about maintaining and expanding health coverage:

• In collaboration with the National Academy of Public Administration, project staff planned to undertake an analysis of the management and administrative issues that arise in expanding health coverage. As of spring 2007, the project was underway with target completion in 2008. RWJF is supporting the project with a grant of $719,260 (Grant ID# 057084).
• Project staff planned to analyze the economic, political and social developments that have shifted economic risks (including the risk of poor health) from businesses and governments to families. These topics were explored at a policy education seminar in September 2006 and at NASI's 2007 annual conference. The Annie E. Casey Foundation was the major funder for this project.