Midterm

The midterm exam is scheduled for in class on Monday, March 9. The exam will be closed book. This page will include a set of topics and questions that will help you in preparing for the exam. You should also study the homework and quizes. Here are the midterm review slides.

Student suggested exam questions

What are three ways to eliminate or minimize adverse selection?
Who were the primary leaders of the maternalist movement? Lillian Wald, Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Julia Lathrop
What is a SNAP? What is the average benefit for a family of 4?
What is the difference between legal and natural rights?
When does adverse selection occur?
When does moral hazard occur?
What were the benefits of fraternal societies in the 19th and early 20th century?
What is title X?
How did Blue Cross form? Blue Shield?
Who benefited from Civil War pensions?
What drove the decline in fraternal organization insurance plans?
What are the key health programs in the social security act?
What is the largest cause of disability (measured by DALYs) in the US?

Past year exam topics and questions

What is the average annual expenditure on health in the United States (in 2019 to the nearest $1000)?
What is an OOP? In a relative sense, how important is OOP in Personal Health Care Expenditures in the US?
What is a DALY?
What is a CMS? What is a HHS?
Why is Otto van Bismark important in the history of insurance?
What four social risks were seen as the key problems social insurance was meant to help alleviate?
What form of publicly provided social insurance was adopted most quickly throughout the world?
When did US states first begin enacting state accident insurance programs?
How was what we now call behavioral economics or nudging important in accident insurance programs of the early 20th-century?
Who were the key stakeholders involved in the expansion of public insurance in the 20th century? What was their main role (pro or con)?
What characterized communist social insurance programs in comparison with those based on the German model?
Winston Churchill believed social welfare programs were a key ideology which motivated the allied efforts in WWII and were embodied by the Beveridge Plan in 1941.
Privatizing social insurance programs is associated with the University of Chicago Department of Economics, particularly Milton Friedman, and is part of neo-liberal economic ideology which grew in popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. That period was also known for the oil shocks, the Latin American debt crises, US stagflation, and decreases in social security benefits in the US.
When was the great depression? When was FDR’s Social Security Act passed?
What is a FICA? A FUTA? Who is responsible for them? How big is FICA today? What are FITA and FUCA used for?
What is a OASDI? A TANF? A SSI?
What are other key social security and social insurance programs in the US?
Other than retired individuals, who else can receive direct benefits from OASDI?
How many workers are paying payroll taxes per OASDI beneficiary?
What is Means Testing? How could it be used to change social insurance programs?
Why is Social Security called a Ponzi Scheme?
What is the key change in the composition of SSI beneficiaries between its establishment and today?
What was the stabilization act of 1942 and why is it important for history of insurance?
When were Medicare and Medicaid created? Who was the president at that time?