Law Commons^™

Contracting For Healthcare: Price Terms In Hospital Admission Agreements, George A. Nation Iii

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This article discusses the application of contract law principles to the relationship between hospitals and patients to determine how much patients owe for the health care they receive. For patients who are covered by in-network health insurance the exact nature of the contract created with the hospital usually is not relevant to the patient’s financial obligation because the patient’s contract with the hospital is superseded by the contract between the patient’s health insurer and the hospital. Nevertheless, even in-network patients are financially impacted, via increased insurance premiums, by the contract analysis discussed here, and for the increasing number of patients …

Contractual Incapacity And The Americans With Disabilities Act, Sean M. Scott

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The doctrine of contractual incapacity allows people with mental disabilities to avoid their contractual liability. Its underlying premise is that the law has an obligation to protect people with such disabilities both from themselves and from unscrupulous people who would take advantage of them; mental incapacity provides this protection by rendering certain contracts unenforceable. The Disability Rights Movement (“DRM”), however, has challenged such protective legal doctrines, as they rest on outmoded concepts about people with mental disabilities.

This essay argues that the mental incapacity doctrine undermines the goals of the DRM and the legislative goals of the Americans with Disabilities …