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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Unaffordable Health Care Act - A Reponse To Professors Bagley And Horwitz, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
The Unaffordable Health Care Act - A Reponse To Professors Bagley And Horwitz, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
Articles
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 has stirred considerable controversy. In the public debate over the program, many of its proponents have defended it by focusing on what is sometimes called the “free-rider” problem. In a prior article, we contended that the free-rider problem has been greatly exaggerated and was not a significant factor in the congressional decision to adopt the Act. We maintained that the free-rider issue is a red herring advanced to trigger an emotional attraction to the Act and distract attention from the actual issues that favor and disfavor its adoption. In a recently …
Who Pays? Who Benefits? Unfairness In American Health Care, Clark C. Havighurst, Barak D. Richman
Who Pays? Who Benefits? Unfairness In American Health Care, Clark C. Havighurst, Barak D. Richman
Faculty Scholarship
American-style health insurance greatly amplifies price-gouging opportunities for health care providers, who inflate prices both to enrich themselves and to subsidize and expand the nation’s health care enterprise. To the extent that lower- and middle-income Americans with private health coverage pay premiums that go to support and expand the system, they are subject to an unfair (regressive) “head tax” levied by unaccountable entities for ostensibly public but also private purposes. Lower-income premium payers also often pay for costly health coverage designed to suit the economic interests and values of professional and other elites rather than their own. They also appear …
A Cautious Path Forward On Accountable Care Organizations, Barak D. Richman, Kevin A. Schulman
A Cautious Path Forward On Accountable Care Organizations, Barak D. Richman, Kevin A. Schulman
Faculty Scholarship
The wave of new Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), spurred by financial incentives in the Affordable Care Act, could become the latest chapter in the steady accumulation of market power by hospitals, health care systems, and physician groups. The main purpose behind forming many ACOs may not be to achieve cost savings but instead to strengthen negotiating power over purchasers in the private sector. This would be an unfortunate sequel to the waves of mergers in the 1990s when health care entities sought to counter market pressure from managed care organizations. The possibility that ACOs might further concentrate health care markets …
Why It's Called The Affordable Care Act, Nicholas Bagley, Jill R. Horwitz
Why It's Called The Affordable Care Act, Nicholas Bagley, Jill R. Horwitz
Articles
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (“ACA”) raises numerous policy and legal issues, but none have attracted as much attention from lawyers as Section 1501. This provision, titled “Maintenance of Mini-mum Essential Coverage,” but better known as the “individual mandate,” requires most Americans to obtain health insurance for themselves and their dependents by 2014. We are dismayed that the narrow issue of the mandate and the narrower issue of free riding have garnered so much attention when our nation’s health-care system suffers from countless problems. By improving quality, controlling costs, and extending coverage to the uninsured, the …
Free Rider: A Justification For Mandatory Medical Insurance Under Health Care Reform?, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
Free Rider: A Justification For Mandatory Medical Insurance Under Health Care Reform?, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
Articles
Section 1501 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act added section 5000A to the Internal Revenue Code to require most individuals in the United States, beginning in the year 2014, to purchase an established minimum level of medical insurance. This requirement, which is enforced by a penalty imposed on those who fail to comply, is sometimes referred to as the “individual mandate.” The individual mandate is one element of a vast change to the provision of medical care that Congress implemented in 2010. The individual mandate has proved to be controversial and has been the subject of a number …