Law Commons^™

Medicine As A Public Calling, Nicholas Bagley

Michigan Law Review

The debate over how to tame private medical spending tends to pit advocates of government-provided insurance—a single-payer scheme—against those who would prefer to harness market forces to hold down costs. When it is mentioned at all, the possibility of regulating the medical industry as a public utility is brusquely dismissed as anathema to the American regulatory tradition. This dismissiveness, however, rests on a failure to appreciate just how deeply the public utility model shaped health law in the twentieth century— and how it continues to shape health law today. Closer economic regulation of the medical industry may or may not …

Fracking And The Rural Poor: Negative Externalities, Failing Remedies, And Federal Legislation, Matthew Castelli

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

This Note examines the relationship between the rural poor and the negative externalities of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). It asserts that the rural poor are disproportionately burdened with fracking’s negative externalities and that comprehensive, national regulation is needed because current legal methods are insufficient to internalize these costs. The argument is made in four parts: describing fracking’s externalities; assessing their impact on the rural poor; analyzing current legal regimes; and proposing an equitable regulatory framework based on cooperative federalism.

Fracking produces three main categories of negative externalities: water, air, and land contamination. Water contamination can be caused by migration of fracking …

Introducing New Users To An Old Poison: The Tobacco Industry’S Efforts To Thwart The Fda’S Regulation Of E-Cigarettes, Jennifer S. Bard

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Can You Diagnose Me Now? A Proposal To Modify The Fda’S Regulation Of Smartphone Mobile Health Applications With A Pre-Market Notification And Application Database Program, Stephen Mcinerney

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Advances in mobile technology continually create new possibilities for the future of medical care. Yet these changes have also created concerns about patient safety. Under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the authority to regulate a broad spectrum of products beyond traditional medical devices like stethoscopes or pacemakers. The regulatory question is not if the FDA has the statutory authority to regulate health-related software, but rather how it will exercise its regulatory authority. In September 2013, the FDA published Final Guidance on Mobile Medical Applications; in it, the Agency limited its oversight to …