Law Commons^™

Federalizing Medicaid, Nicole Huberfeld

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article is one of only a small number of proposals over the past forty-six years for federalizing Medicaid. None of these proposals has grappled directly with the reasons that Medicaid does not satisfy federalism goals, and thus a key reason for modernizing Medicaid’s structure has been ignored. Despite being an area of “traditional state concern,” healthcare should no longer be left to the economic and political whims of the states, as Medicaid is not an effective Brandeisian “laboratory of the states.” Admittedly, some would oppose centralization on the ideological grounds that more federal government power is bad, and more …

The Future Of Employment-Based Health Insurance After The Patient Protection And Affordable Case Act, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the United States, unlike in all other advanced industrial states, health care is financed principally through employment-based health insurance. In 2009, more than 156 million individuals under the age of sixty-five, or 59% of that population, were covered by employment- based health insurance.

On March 21, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Described as seminal as the enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), PPACA fundamentally reforms the American health care system. PPACA, however, does not eliminate the system’s reliance on employment- based health insurance. Instead, it builds on, and arguably …