Law Commons^™

The Socioeconomic Gap Of Infertility: Medicaid Coverage Of Infertility Treatments In West Virginia, Samantha Wilson

West Virginia Law Review

Infertility treatments have become more accessible and widely used in the last 20 years. As more couples look to these treatments in their struggle to start a family, health insurers are lagging behind in coverage for these options. For the majority of women in the country, paying for infertility treatment out-ofpocket is unrealistic. Not all states have approached this issue but those who have vary in their approach. Some are utilizing either mandate-to-cover for private insurers or Medicaid coverage to attempt to make treatments and diagnosis more accessible. Without policy solutions, the inequality of access between socioeconomic statuses will remain. …

Medical Malpractice As Murder? Using Root Cause Analysis As A Guiding Framework For Criminal Medical Malpractice, Kinsey Novak Booth

West Virginia Law Review

Unprecedented criminal prosecutions for medical errors have increased throughout the nation: A Tennessee nurse was charged with reckless homicide for an isolated medication error; two South Carolina nurses were charged with criminal neglect for failing to change a wound dressing for just two days; and an Ohio pharmacist was charged with involuntary manslaughter for failing to detect that a solution contained too much sodium. Introducing criminal charges for cases of typical medical malpractice, which are most often the result of system failures, will dismantle hospitals’ error-reporting systems and lead to long-term catastrophic results for patient safety. This Note applies system …

The Dobbs Effect On West Virginia, Anne Marie Lofaso, Cameron Kiner

West Virginia Law Review

Humans have practiced birth control, including abortion, for thousands of years. Pregnant individuals have sought abortions for many reasons even though the abortion procedure itself has often been dangerous to the pregnant person’s life. Moreover, a stable consensus concerning the debate about when life begins and other questions surrounding abortion has rarely if ever been attained. Notwithstanding the numerous questions raised by this indisputably controversial subject, this article is quite limited in scope. In Section I, we review the development and retrenchment of an individual’s right to terminate their pregnancy starting on January 22, 1973, the day that the United …

The Dental Health Of Rural Elderly People And Its Social Justice Implications, Jacqueline Fox

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Medicaid Expansion Expectations, Deborah R. Farringer

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Financing Rural Health Care, Isaac D. Buck

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

International Human Rights As A Vehicle For Achieving Rural Health, David H. Moore, Emily Lowder, Cami Schiel

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Immigration Solution For Improving Rural Healthcare, Kit Johnson

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Aren't Mountain State Folks Getting The Shot?: Health Literacy, Covid-19, And Vaccination Rates In West Virginia Counties, Elizabeth Van Nostrand, Taylor J. Robinson, Aimee J. Palumbo

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Healthcare Education Leaves The Hills: Frontier Nursing University's Move From Appalachia, Hannah Haksgaard

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transgender Rural Communities And Legal Rights To Gender-Affirming Health Care, Nathan R. Hamons, Valarie K. Blake

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Opioid Crisis: Lessons For Health Reform, Valarie K. Blake

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Health Care Civil Rights Under Medicare For All, Valarie K. Blake

Law Faculty Scholarship

The passage of Medicare for All would go a long way toward curing the inequality that plagues our health care system along racial, sex, age, health status, disability, and socioeconomic lines. Yet, while laudably creating a universal right to access to health care, Medicare for All may inadvertently dampen civil rights protections that are necessary to ensure equality in health care delivery, an outcome its creators and supporters surely would not intend.

Federal money is typically requisite for civil rights enforcement. Title VI, Title IX, and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 all apply to recipients of federal financial assistance. …

Sex Discrimination In Healthcare: Section 1557 And Lgbtq Rights After Bostock, Amy Post, Ashley Stephens, Valarie K. Blake

Law Faculty Scholarship

Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) banned sex discrimination in health care. In June of 2020, however, the Trump administration finalized a rule that explicitly removed sexual orientation and gender identity from Section 1557’s safeguards. That same month, the Supreme Court held that sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination are forms of sex discrimination for purposes of Title VII employment discrimination in Bostock v. Clayton County. Following the Court’s decision in Bostock, this Article argues that sex discrimination under Section 1557 necessarily encompasses gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination.

Sane, Manipulative Self-Harm: When Hostage And Hostage Taker Become One, John R. Fitzgerald

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

States, Localities And Public Health, David Gartner

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulating Care Robots, Valarie K. Blake

Law Faculty Scholarship

Care robots already assist the elderly in some nursing homes around the globe and could be in widespread use in hospitals and private homes sooner than we think. These robots promise great hope for patients: robots can provide increased independence, assistance with daily living, comfort and distraction during procedures, education, and companionship during vulnerable and lonely times in patients' lives. Despite these promising features, there are a number of concerns; care robots, designed with the aim of winning patient trust and affection, have unprecedented access to personal lives as well as recording and sensory capabilities beyond any human. They pose …

Forbidden Flower: How Allowing Medical Cannabis Flower In West Virginia Helps Heal Patients And The State Economy, Jordan Maddy

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Remedies To Address Stigma-Based Health Inequalities In The United States: Opportunities And Challenges, Valarie K. Blake, Mark L. Hatzenbuehler

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Stigma is an established driver of population-level health outcomes. Antidiscrimination laws can generate or alleviate stigma and, thus, are a critical component in the study of improving population health.

Currently, antidiscrimination laws are often underenforced and are sometimes conceptualized by courts and lawmakers in ways that are too narrow to fully reach all forms of stigma and all individuals who are stigmatized.

To remedy these limitations, we propose the creation of a new population-level surveillance system of antidiscrimination law and its enforcement, a central body to enforce antidiscrimination laws, as well as a collaborative research initiative to enhance the study …

Healthcare In Appalachia And The Role Of The Federal Government, Robert R. Davis, Shelly Cole

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Improving Outcomes In Child Poverty And Wellness In Appalachia In The "New Normal" Era: Infusing Empathy Into Law, Jill C. Engle

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Black Lung In The 21st Century: Disease, Law, And Policy, Evan Barrett Smith

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Strategies For Economic Empowerment Of Persons In Recovery, Lauren Rogal

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulation Of Silica: Will Lowering The Exposure Level Cost Jobs Or Improve Public Health?, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Community Orchards And Food Security In Appalachia, Ursula Ramsey

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Working For Recovery: How The Americans With Disabilities Act And State Human Rights Laws Can Facilitiate Successful Rehabilitation For Alcoholics And Drug Addicts, Samuel Brown Petsonk, Anne Marie Lofaso

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Parallel Worlds: Comparing Rural Development To Development In Global Communities, Jena Martin, Karon Powell

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ebolamania And Equal Protection Of Health Care Workers Under Rational Basis With Bite Review, Jennifer Jolly-Ryan

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rethinking The Americans With Disabilities Act’S Insurance Safe Harbor, Valarie K. Blake

Law Faculty Scholarship

Despite the importance of access to healthcare for the disabled, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has made little inroads in reducing disability-based discrimination by health insurers in the United States. One reason is undoubtedly the ADA’s insurance safe harbor, which explicitly permits insurers to discriminate on the basis of disability in health insurance so long as the differential treatment is supported by actuarial data and is not just intended to disadvantage the disabled. While the safe harbor’s harms are somewhat limited by the advent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they are not entirely neutralized. This article argues that …

Engaging Health Insurers In The War On Prescription Painkillers, Valarie K. Blake

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.