help preserve a claimant's Medicare benefits. A Structured Medicare Set Aside Arrangement (MSA) generally costs less than a non-structured MSA because of amortization of the future cash flow over the claimant's life expectancy, as opposed to funding all the payments otherwise due in the future in a single non-discounted sum today. Structured settlements have been endorsed by many of the nation's largest disability rights organizations, including the American Association of People with Disabilities. and for a time there was a Congressional Structured Settlement Caucus. Legal structure The typical structured settlement arises and is structured as follows: An injured party (the claimant) comes to a negotiated settlement of a tort suit with the defendant (or its insurance carrier) pursuant to a settlement agreement that provides as consideration, in exchange for the claimant's securing the dismissal of the lawsuit, an agreement by the defendant (or, more commonly, its insurer) to make a series of periodic payments. If any of the periodic payments are life-contingent (i.e. the obligation to make a payment is contingent on someone continuing to be alive), then the claimant (or whoever is determined to be the measuring life) is named as the annuitant or measuring life under the annuity. In some instances the purchasing company may purchase a life insurance policy as a hedge in case of death in a settlement transfer. Assigned cases The defendant, or the property/casualty insurance company, generally assigns its periodic payment obligation to a third party by way of a qualified assignment ("assigned case"). An assignment is said to be "qualified" if it satisfies the criteria set forth in Internal Revenue Code Section 130. Qualification of the assignment is important to assignment companies because without it the amount they receive to induce them to accept periodic payment obligations would be considered income for federal income tax purposes. If an assignment qualifies under Section 130, however, the amount received is excluded from the income of the assignment company. This provision of the tax code was enacted to encourage assigned cases; without it, assignment companies would owe federal income taxes but would typically have no source from which to make the payments. The qualified assignment company receives money from the defendant or property/casualty insurer, and in turn purchases a "qualified funding asset" to finance the assigned periodic payment obligation. Pursuant to IRC 130(d) a "qualified funding asset" may be an annuity or an obligation of the