Law Commons^™

From Almshouses To Nursing Homes And Community Care: Lessons From Medicaid's History, Sidney D. Watson

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Home and community-based services are support and long-term care services that offer an alternative to institutional care for those who need assistance with life's daily activities. For Lois Curtis of Atlanta, one of the plaintiffs in the Olmstead v. L.C.¹ who spent most of her life in mental institutions, it means a live-in companion who helps her with the day-to-day activities of living in her own home, like managing finances, cooking meals, and keeping track of medications.² For Larry McAfee, another Georgian who was quadriplegic, community-based services involved round-the-clock personal care, wheelchair accessible bathrooms and kitchens, a specialized …

African Americans Can't Win, Break Even, Or Get Out Of The System: The Persistence Of “Unequal Treatment ” In Nursing Home Care, Ruqaiijah A. Yearby

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Empirical data show that racial disparities in the quality of care provided by nursing homes are a common occurrence, not isolated to Illinois. Nine years after the publication of the groundbreaking Institute of Medicine Study (“IOM study”) Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Healthcare, which acknowledged continued racial disparities in health care and provided suggestions for the elimination of these disparities, racial disparities still remain. One chief example of the continuation of racial disparities in health care is in the provision of nursing home care.

Decades of empirical research studies have shown that racial disparities in accessing quality …

Accountable Care Organizations: A New New Thing With Some Old Problems, Thomas L. Greaney

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When pressed for evidence that the proposed health reform legislation will control costs, proponents invariably cite the numerous pilot programs and other innovations in Medicare payment policy contained in the bill. At first blush, the ACO model seems well designed to foster competition among providers. Not unlike health maintenance organizations and other integrated delivery forms, ACOs assume responsibility for coordinating care and thus have strong incentives to provide cost effective care and to do so in a manner that is transparent and hospitable to comparative shoppers. But at the same time, the path of ACO development could prove profoundly anti-competitive. …

Race, Sex And Genes At Work: Uncovering The Lessons Of Norman-Bloodsaw, Elizabeth Pendo

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The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (“GINA”) is the first federal, uniform protection against the use of genetic information in both the workplace and health insurance. Signed into law on May 21, 2008, GINA prohibits an employer or health insurer from acquiring or using an individual’s genetic information, with some exceptions. One of the goals of GINA is to eradicate actual, or perceived, discrimination based on genetic information in the workplace and in health insurance. Although the threat of genetic discrimination is often discussed in universal terms - as something that could happen to any of us - the …

A Prisoner's Constitutional Right To Medical Information: Doctrinally Flawed And A Threat To State Informed Consent Law, Robert Gatter

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White v. Napoleon and its progeny recognize a substantive due process right to receive the disclosure of medical treatment information. While each case involves a prisoner receiving treatment while in custody, the constitutional right described in those cases is not limited to prisoners. Instead, the right is described as belonging to all individuals. Consequently, this line of cases is poised to interfere with the disclosure standards that operate in state informed consent law in the many instances where state action exists. This Article argues that the substantive due process right recognized in White should be overturned. The right is based …

A Service Learning Project: Disability, Access And Health Care, Elizabeth Pendo

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Last summer, I was thinking about a public service project for my disability discrimination law course. I teach the course in fall, and try to incorporate a project each year. At the same time, I was working on a project looking at barriers to health care for people with disabilities. Some of the barriers are well known, such as lower average incomes, disproportionate poverty, and issues with insurance coverage, to name just a few. I was looking at barriers of a different type, however: those posed by physically inaccessible facilities and equipment. This was a new area for me. Like …

Litigation, Integration, And Transformation: Using Medicaid To Address Racial Inequities In Health Care, Ruqaiijah Yearby

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Using a public health policy perspective, this article examines the persistence of racial inequities in nursing homes and prescribes a solution to address these inequities. I use empirical data to prove the persistence of racial inequities in health care, analyze the government policies that allow racial inequities to continue, and provide a solution of regulatory integration. Specifically, I propose that civil rights enforcement be integrated with the nursing home enforcement system, which has been aggressively enforced and monitored. There are many strategies that may lead to the adoption of this system. One such strategy is using the Medicaid Act to …

Litigation, Integration, And Transformation: Using Medcaid To Address Racial Inequities In Health Care, Ruqaiijah A. Yearby

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Instances of racial discrimination in health care continue despite the enactment of civil rights laws, such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 *329 (Title VI). Title VI prohibited racial discrimination by health care entities receiving government funding such as Medicaid payments. The federal government focused its initial efforts on hospitals. Because hospitals relied on federal funding, the federal government was able to force hospitals to integrate without much resistance from the hospital industry. However, since this accomplishment the government has relied too heavily on assurances of compliance from other health care entities, such as nursing homes, …

Reducing Disparities Through Health Care Reform: Disability And Accessible Medical Equipment, Elizabeth Pendo

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People with disabilities face multiple barriers to adequate health care and report poorer health status than people without disabilities. Although health care institutions, offices, and programs are required to be accessible, people with disabilities are still receiving unequal and in many cases inadequate care. The 2009 report by the National Council on Disability, The Current State of Health Care for People with Disabilities, reaffirmed some of these findings, concluding that people with disabilities experience significant health disparities and barriers to health care; encounter a lack of coverage for necessary services, medications, equipment, and technologies; and are not included in the …

Does Twenty-Five Years Make A Difference In “Unequal Treatment”?: The Persistence Of Racial Disparities In Health Care Then And Now, Ruqaiijah A. Yearby

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In 1985, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Services (HHS) issued a landmark report that exposed the persistence of racial disparities in the U.S. healthcare system. Unfortunately, twenty-five years later, racial disparities in healthcare continue to persist. For example, since 1985, more African-Americans have died from coronary disease, breast cancer, and diabetes than Caucasians, even though more Caucasians suffer from these diseases than African-Americans. Notwithstanding their increased mortality rates, African Americans “have a statistically significantly lower mean number of annual ambulatory [walk-in] visits and are less likely to have seen a physician in [any given] year.” Studies …