Law Commons^™

Non-Elderly Adults On Disability In The Cf Population, Lea Nolan, Semret Seyoum, Julanne Wilson, Marsha Regenstein

Health Policy and Management Issue Briefs

No abstract provided.

Risk Indicators Of Food Insecurity In The Cf Population, Semret Seyoum, Marsha Regenstein, Lea Nolan

Health Policy and Management Issue Briefs

No abstract provided.

Cost, Coverage, And The Underuse Of Medications Among People With Cf, Semret Seyoum, Marsha Regenstein, Lea Nolan

Health Policy and Management Issue Briefs

No abstract provided.

Chapter: “Health Law And Ethics”, Allison K. Hoffman, I. Glenn Cohen, William M. Sage

All Faculty Scholarship

Law and ethics are both essential attributes of a high-functioning health care system and powerful explainers of why the existing system is so difficult to improve. U.S. health law is not seamless; rather, it derives from multiple sources and is based on various theories that may be in tension with one another. There are state laws and federal laws, laws setting standards and laws providing funding, laws reinforcing professional prerogatives, laws furthering social goals, and laws promoting market competition. Complying with law is important, but health professionals also should understand that the legal and ethical constraints under which health systems …

Key New Hampshire And Federal Statutes Regulating Health Care Delivery And Payment, Lucy Hodder

Law Faculty Scholarship

A summary of New Hampshire and federal regulations by subject matter, chart of New Hampshire state agency responsibilities, federal laws and regulation: An index

Covering The Care: Cost Sharing Reductions In Nh, Jo Porter, Lucy C. Hodder

Law Faculty Scholarship

This brief uses national data to describe the NH population who received Cost Sharing Reductions for coverage on the NH Marketplace.

Covering The Care: A Focus On The Nh Marketplace, Jo Porter, Lucy C. Hodder

Law Faculty Scholarship

The second brief uses national and state data to describe the NH population enrolled in the health insurance plans through the NH Marketplace.

Changing The Tax Code To Create Consumer-Driven Health Insurance Competition, Regina Herzlinger, Barak D. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

Because current tax laws exclude employer-paid health insurance premiums from employees’ taxable wages and income, employer-sponsored insurance remains the primary source of health insurance for most employed Americans. Economists have long blamed the employer-based insurance tax exclusion for inflating health care costs, and, more recently, for constraining income growth and exacerbating income inequality.

We execute a simulation to test the effect of permitting employees to receive their employers’ premium contribution directly and then purchase health insurance themselves, using tax-free funds. Employees could deduct for income tax purposes the amount used for insurance and, if they spend less than the amount …

N.C. Medicaid Reform: A Bipartisan Path Forward, Barak D. Richman, Allison Rice

Faculty Scholarship

The North Carolina Medicaid program currently constitutes 32% of the state budget and provides insurance coverage to 18% of the state’s population. At the same time, 13% of North Carolinians remain uninsured, and even among the insured, significant health disparities persist across income, geography, education, and race.

The Duke University Bass Connections Medicaid Reform project gathered to consider how North Carolina could use its limited Medicaid dollars more effectively to reduce the incidence of poor health, improve access to healthcare, and reduce budgetary pressures on the state’s taxpayers.

This report is submitted to North Carolina’s policymakers and citizens. It assesses …

Economic Windfalls And The Affordable Care Act: A Policy Proposal, Joshua Congdon-Hohman, Victor Matheson

Economics Department Working Papers

This paper identifies a major issue with windfall payments under either possible interpretation of the ACA as it currently stands. Several alternatives are proposed that would eliminate the windfalls. We advocate the establishment of a tort award funded “Federal Stabilization Fund” to improve the economic efficiency of future health care awards in the age of the Affordable Care Act

Health Care Spending And Financial Security After The Affordable Care Act, Allison K. Hoffman

All Faculty Scholarship

Health insurance has fallen notoriously short of protecting Americans from financial insecurity caused by health care spending. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) attempted to ameliorate this shortcoming by regulating health insurance. The ACA offers a new policy vision of how health insurance will (and perhaps should) serve to promote financial security in the face of health care spending. Yet, the ACA’s policy vision applies differently among insured, based on the type of insurance they have, resulting in inconsistent types and levels of financial protection among Americans.

To examine this picture of inconsistent financial protection, this Article offers …

An Optimist's Take On The Decline Of Small-Employer Health Insurance, Allison K. Hoffman

All Faculty Scholarship

In their Article, Saving Small-Employer Health Insurance, Amy Monahan and Dan Schwarcz contend that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) could be the death of small-group health insurance by incentivizing many small employers not to offer coverage. While their prediction that the ACA, after implemented, will destabilize the small-group insurance market may prove true, I argue why their prescription that it should be saved is flawed and why we may be better off without small group insurance.

The Power To Block The Affordable Care Act: What Are The Limits?, John D. Kraemer, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Though Supreme Court upheld most parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Congress’ goals in enacting it could still be frustrated by non-implementation. During his campaign for president, Governor Romney promised “to issue Obamacare waivers to all fifty states.” While such blanket waivers would likely violate the Constitution’s Take Care Clause, the ACA does permit other waivers. To be lawful, however, they must meet certain requirements designed to enhance access and lower cost. A president who opposes the ACA might be able to limit its implementation by refusing to issue premium subsidies in federally operated insurance exchanges, and this might …

Justice Roberts’ America, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Less than a week after the Roberts Court issued its decision in National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius, Jeffrey Toobin, writing in The New Yorker, compared the first part of Chief Justice John Roberts's opinion, in which he found that the Commerce Clause did not authorize Congress to enact the "individual mandate" section of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that requires all individuals to buy health insurance, with an Ayn Rand screed, noting that the pivotal sections of the argument were long on libertarian rhetoric but short on citations of authority. Roberts held (although "held" might be …

Affordable Care Act Litigation: The Supreme Court And The Future Of Health Care Reform, Lawrence O. Gostin, Kelli K. Garcia

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Florida v. HHS, a lawsuit brought on behalf of 26 states challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Supreme Court will determine the future direction of health care reform in the United States. During the unprecedented 5-1/2 hours of oral arguments, the Court will hear 4 issues: the individual purchase mandate, severability, the Medicaid expansion and the Anti-Injunction Act.

The states challenging the ACA maintain that the purchase mandate uniquely penalizes individuals for failing to purchase insurance. Uninsured individuals, however, rarely do nothing. Instead, they self-insure, rely on family, and cost-shift to …

Fragmentation In Mental Health Benefits And Services: A Preliminary Examination Into Consumption And Outcomes, Barak D. Richman, Daniel Grossman, Frank Sloan

Faculty Scholarship

In this chapter, we examine consumption patterns and health outcomes within a health insurance system in which mental health benefits are administered under a carved-out insurance plan. Using a comprehensive dataset of health claims, including insurance claims for both mental and physical health services, we examine both heterogeneity of consumption and variation in outcomes. Consumption variation addresses the regularly overlooked question of how equal insurance and access does not translate into equitable consumption. Outcomes variation yields insights into the potential harms of disparate consumption and of uncoordinated care. We find that even when insurance and access are held constant, consumption …

The Health Insurance Debate In Canada: Lessons For The United States?, Mary Anne Bobinski

Faculty Articles

This Essay begins with an intentionally ambiguous title. Are comparisons to Canada relevant and useful for policy-makers in the United States and, if so, what lessons can we learn? Part II of this Essay highlights some of the risks and benefits of cross-border comparisons between the United States and Canada. In Part III, I analyze some of the key data points often cited in comparing the two health care systems. Part IV explores the current Canadian debate about private health insurance. Finally, in Part V, I focus on the lessons from Canada for the health insurance debate in the United …

Massworks: Commonhealth, Rick Kugler

MassWorks Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

Did you know workers with disabilities can purchase health insurance and receive almost all of the benefits offered through MassHealth Standard? Thanks to CommonHealth, individuals with disabilities in Massachusetts need not choose between vital healthcare benefits and potential job opportunities. CommonHealth is a MassHealth program available to individuals with disabilities who are not eligible for MassHealth Standard. CommonHealth can help promote self-sufficiency by providing low-cost health coverage to workers with disabilities.

Women, Poverty, Access To Health Care, And The Perils Of Symbolic Reform, Mary Anne Bobinski, Phyllis Griffin Epps

Faculty Articles

This article looks at health care through gendered eyes. We sift though available data on access to health care, health status, and health treatments to determine whether men and women experience health care differently in the United States. While we do not doubt that overt gender-based discrimination occasionally occurs in health care, this article focuses on the importance of unintended consequences and unconscious bias. We also explore the impact of symbolism about women's roles on the process of health care reform. The results have important implications for policy makers, advocates, and health care providers.

The United States has a large …

Trust And Betrayal In The Medical Marketplace, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author argues in this Comment that disingenuity as first resort is an unwise approach to the conflict between our ex ante and our later, illness-endangered selves. Not only does rationing by tacit deceit raise a host of moral problems, it will not work, over the long haul, because markets reward deceit's unmasking. The honesty about clinical limit-setting that some bioethicists urge may not be fully within our reach. But more candor is possible than we now achieve, and the more conscious we are about decisions to impose limits, the more inclined we will be to accept them without experiencing …

Race And Discretion In American Medicine, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author’s focus in this article is on racial disparities in medical care provision--that is, on differences in the services that clinically similar patients receive when they present to the health care system. Racial disparities in health status, which is not greatly influenced (on a population-wide basis) by medical care, are beyond his scope here. Disparities in medical care access-potential patients' ability, financial and otherwise, to gain entry to the health care system in the first place, are also outside his focus. The author begins this article by putting the problem of racial disparities in medical care provision within the …

Rights And Efficiency In American Health Law, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

During the 1960s and 1970s, the individual rights revolution that swept through American society remade much of the nation's health law in its image. Sick people acquired the right to be told of the risks and benefits of proposed treatments and then to give thumbs-up or thumbs-down to their doctors' decisions. Successful suits for medical negligence went from rare to commonplace. Elderly and poor Americans achieved statutory rights of access to publicly funded healthcare, and courts burnished these rights with myriad procedural protections. The critically ill and their families won the right to refuse aggressive, life-sustaining treatments. Psychiatric patients acquired …

Foreword: Health Care Reform In The United States—The Presidential Task Force, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay serves as the foreword to Implementing U.S. Health Care Reform, a symposium held in 1993.

The exact specifications of the new health care system depend on the package that President Clinton will send to Capitol Hill and the changes that Congress will make in the reform package. Some of the basic structures and organizing principles of the new system that are being considered by the President are already the subject of intense public scrutiny.

The design being considered would involve new relations between the federal government and the states, between the public and private sectors, and between …

Health Care Reform In The United States, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author presents a brief description of the design features and objectives of the health care reform package, together with the reasons to support reform of the health care system in the United States.

Medicare Supplemental Insurance: Today's Crisis, Health Care For All, Gerontology Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Gerontology Institute Publications

The purpose of health insurance is to spread risk. The system works under the assumption that, at any given point in time, only a percentage of the people in a given group will be sick. Regardless of health status, all members of the group will be paying premiums in order to cover the cost of care for those who need it.

As a group, however, seniors represent a high-risk population. They are more likely than younger people to need health care services and tend to require longer hospital stays. Yet, while their expenses are greater, their financial resources are generally …

Symposium: Ohioans Without Health Insurance: How Big A Problem? Are There Solutions?, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Ohioans Without Health Insurance: How Big A Problem? Are There Solutions?, was the INAUGURAL Conference of Cleveland State University's Law & Public Policy Program, an interdisciplinary program of instruction, public service and research sponsored jointly by the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs. The goal of the Conference was to facilitate an exchange of information and views among representatives of the public and major interests concerned with the growing numbers of persons who either lack health insurance or have inadequate coverage.

Serving The Elderly: Need Versus Policy, Wornie L. Reed

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

Medicare was established in 1965 under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act. It was originally meant to eliminate the financial barriers to medical care for the aged. It has been called a form of national health insurance for persons age 65 and over. But it was deliberately designed in a manner to avoid modification of the fee-for-services system that is the basis of American Medical Care (Estes, 1979). As a result, inflation in the cost of care has seriously reduced financial benefits to the beneficiaries and in turn limited the access to medical care by the elderly.