Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Paternalism, Public Health, And Behavioral Economics: A Problematic Combination, Wendy K. Mariner
Paternalism, Public Health, And Behavioral Economics: A Problematic Combination, Wendy K. Mariner
Faculty Scholarship
Some critiques of public health regulations assume that measures directed at industry should be considered paternalistic whenever they limit any consumer choices. Given the presumption against paternalistic measures, this conception of paternalism puts government proposals to regulate industry to the same stringent proof as clearly paternalist proposals to directly regulate individuals for their own benefit. The result is to discourage regulating industry in ways that protect the public from harm and instead to encourage regulating individuals for their own good -- quite the opposite of what one would expect from a rejection of paternalism. Arguments favoring "soft paternalism" to justify …
Health Insurance Is Dead; Long Live Health Insurance, Wendy K. Mariner
Health Insurance Is Dead; Long Live Health Insurance, Wendy K. Mariner
Faculty Scholarship
Today, health insurance is no longer simply a class of insurance that covers risks to health, and it has not been so for many years. Health insurance has become a unique form of insurance — a mechanism to pay for healthcare that uses risk spreading as one of several pricing methods. The Affordable Care Act builds on this important payment function to create a complex social insurance system to finance healthcare for (almost) everyone. This article examines how the ACA draws on various conceptions of insurance to produce a quasi-social insurance system. This system poses new challenges to laws governing …