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Full-Text Articles in Law
Pro-Choice Plans, Brendan S. Maher
Pro-Choice Plans, Brendan S. Maher
Faculty Scholarship
After Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the United States Constitution may no longer protect abortion, but a surprising federal statute does. That statute is called the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), and it has long been one of the most powerful preemptive statutes in the entire United States Code. ERISA regulates “employee benefit plans,” which are the vehicle by which approximately 155 million people receive their health insurance. Plans are thus a major private payer for health benefits—and therefore abortions. While many post-Dobbs anti-abortion laws directly bar abortion by making either the receipt or provision of …
A Response To Rules Of Medical Necessity, Brendan S. Maher
A Response To Rules Of Medical Necessity, Brendan S. Maher
Faculty Scholarship
Professors Monahan and Schwarcz’s recent Article in the Iowa Law Review, Rules of Medical Necessity, is a must-read for multiple audiences. In this short Response, I informally describe health insurance, and—using that perspective—describe and comment on why Rules of Medical Necessity is a piece of work that not only deserves attention from experts in the field, but is also one that casual readers should choose first when attempting to understand how health insurance works in theory and practice.
The Case For Pausing Any Immediate Embrace Of The Social Inflation Argument For Legal System Reforms, Kenneth S. Klein
The Case For Pausing Any Immediate Embrace Of The Social Inflation Argument For Legal System Reforms, Kenneth S. Klein
Faculty Scholarship
This paper brings a critical eye to the current conversation about "social inflation," reaching the conclusion that the current calls for legal system reform--whether that be controls on attorney advertising, clamping down on litigation financing, revisiting of fee recovery rules, or other similar reform proposals--currently lack the empirical support and analytical comprehensiveness for. regulators and legislators to act with confidence that the requested reforms will do more good than harm. In a variety of States, insurance premiums are rising faster than general inflation, some insurers are becoming insolvent, and some insurers are leaving markets entirely. Insurers are pointing to social …
The Unnatural Disaster Of Insurance, Underinsurance, And Natural Disasters, Kenneth S. Klein
The Unnatural Disaster Of Insurance, Underinsurance, And Natural Disasters, Kenneth S. Klein
Faculty Scholarship
This article presents a novel data set describing the frequency of materially inadequate homeowner insurance in the event of a total loss. For decades, after a natural disaster, large percentages of homeowners who have lost their homes report suffering a second devastating loss — that, entirely to their surprise, they are vastly underinsured. These reports provocatively suggest that a large majority of all insured homes in the United States — not just homes destroyed by a natural disaster—might be profoundly, unknowingly, and unintentionally underinsured. Insurance companies reject this possibility. Insurers posit that underinsurance is rare, that other than after natural …