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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Irony Of Health Care’S Public Option, Allison K. Hoffman
The Irony Of Health Care’S Public Option, Allison K. Hoffman
All Faculty Scholarship
The idea of a public health insurance option is at least a half century old, but has not yet had its day in the limelight. This chapter explains why if that moment ever comes, health care’s public option will fall short of expectations that it will provide a differentiated, meaningful alternative to private health insurance and will spur health insurance competition.
Health care’s public option bubbled up in its best-known form in California in the early 2000s and got increasing mainstream attention in the lead up to the 2010 health reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The …
Cost-Sharing Reductions, Technocrat Tinkering, And Market-Based Health Policy, Allison K. Hoffman
Cost-Sharing Reductions, Technocrat Tinkering, And Market-Based Health Policy, Allison K. Hoffman
All Faculty Scholarship
The Trump Administration has exposed both the durability and vulnerability of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s insurance reforms. One of the Administration’s first strikes at “Obamacare” was to discontinue federal government payment of cost-sharing reductions, which insurers pay to low-income enrollees on the exchanges to reduce their out-of-pocket share of medical spending. The states struck back with a clever solution that could hold insurers and enrollees harmless. This Article examines this strategy and why, while impressive, it reaffirms larger problems with the ACA’s market-based approach to health reform and the need for new pathways forward.
Health Care Spending And Financial Security After The Affordable Care Act, Allison K. Hoffman
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 …
A Vision Of An Emerging Right To Health Care In The United States: Expanding Health Care Equity Through Legislative Reform, Allison K. Hoffman
A Vision Of An Emerging Right To Health Care In The United States: Expanding Health Care Equity Through Legislative Reform, Allison K. Hoffman
All Faculty Scholarship
When asked to write a chapter on how litigation has advanced a right to health in the U.S., I responded skeptically, both because evidence of the existence of any such right is weak and the role of litigation in promoting its development is small at best. A snapshot of the U.S. health care system evinces the absence of even a more narrow right to health care – a guarantee of equitable access to basic medical care. Instead, it reveals a fragmented picture of public and private financing that leaves many people lacking meaningful access to care. More so, the places …
An Optimist's Take On The Decline Of Small-Employer Health Insurance, Allison K. Hoffman
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.