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Health Law and Policy

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Selected Works

Mel Cousins

Health care

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

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Equal Protection, Immigrants And Access To Health Care And Welfare Benefits – A 2014 Update, Mel Cousins Dec 2013

Equal Protection, Immigrants And Access To Health Care And Welfare Benefits – A 2014 Update, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

The introduction of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) led to considerable litigation on the rights of immigrants to welfare benefits and access to health care. There was significant divergence between the approaches adopted by the different courts (both federal and State) based, in part, on the different statutory schemes involved but also on different approaches to equal protection. However, none of the cases reached the Supreme Court so the ‘correct’ approach remained unclarified. In response to the Great Recession and subsequent budget crises, several States have again excluded certain legal immigrants from the scope …


Habitual Residence: Fact Or (Legal) Fiction? Case C- C 255/13, I V. Health Service Executive, Mel Cousins Dec 2013

Habitual Residence: Fact Or (Legal) Fiction? Case C- C 255/13, I V. Health Service Executive, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

Although habitual residence would appear to be a ‘fact specific’ concept, the Court of Justice (CJEU) has increasingly interpreted habitual residence as a legal concept which links a person to the social security system of a specific Member State. Thus, for example, in Wencel, the CJEU ruled that a person could not have a habitual residence in two Member States at the same time. The Court has perhaps taken this approach to its most extreme lengths in the case of I where it has held that a man who had, due to illness, been ‘staying’ in Germany for 11 years …


Health Care ‘Freedom’, Medicare ‘Enrollment’ And Other Paralogisms: Hall V Sebelius, Mel Cousins Apr 2012

Health Care ‘Freedom’, Medicare ‘Enrollment’ And Other Paralogisms: Hall V Sebelius, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

Rather overshadowed by the Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), another case involving a claim for health care ‘freedom’ has recently been dismissed by the DC circuit court of appeals. The case is entirely without any legal interest (or indeed legal merit) and, from a purely legal point of view, is barely worth reporting. Nonetheless from a broader political science perspective, it may be worth noting. From this perspective the ongoing health care litigation (of which Hall v Sebelius is a rather peripheral part) might tend to re-establish a view of …


The Constitutionality Of The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act In The Courts Of Appeals, Mel Cousins Nov 2011

The Constitutionality Of The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act In The Courts Of Appeals, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

Having undergone an extensive process of political discussion and debate, the ACA (properly the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) is now under intensive legal challenge with over 20 different cases from both states and organizations and individuals having been initiated. The challengers argue that the Act lacks a constitutional basis and/or infringes on their constitutional rights. These cases involve a fascinating intersection of legal, political and policy issues and, regardless of the outcome, will have important implications for the future direction of US health care policy. There have now been four decisions of the courts of appeal on the …


Patient Mobility And National Health Systems, Mel Cousins Dec 2006

Patient Mobility And National Health Systems, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

In the last decade, there have been a number of very important judgments of the Court of Justice in relation to patient mobility under article 49 EC and public health systems. Until recently, however, these had referred only to hybrid and private insurance systems. An important question remained as to whether this line of caselaw applied to national health systems and, if so, in what manner. This has now been addressed by the Court of Justice in the Watts case, which concerned the UK national health system (NHS). This note discusses that case.