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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Picture Begins To Assert Itself: Rules Of Construction For Essential Health Benefits In Health Insurance Plans Subject To The Affordable Care Act, Wendy K. Mariner Jul 2015

The Picture Begins To Assert Itself: Rules Of Construction For Essential Health Benefits In Health Insurance Plans Subject To The Affordable Care Act, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

As the ACA shifts the function of health insurance from voluntary contract to a means of financing health care, it poses some challenges to traditional doctrines for interpreting health plan provisions. This article explores whether and how the doctrine of reasonable expectations and rules of statutory interpretation might apply to Essential Health Benefits coverage. A functional approach linking the two into a doctrine of reasonable statutory expectations could move us toward developing more consistent rules of interpretation within a more realistic conception of contemporary health insurance.


An Empirical Perspective On Medicaid As Social Insurance, Nicole Huberfeld Apr 2015

An Empirical Perspective On Medicaid As Social Insurance, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

This paper is a contribution to the symposium entitled Scalpel to Gavel: Exploring the Modern State of Health Law. This essay quantifies and explores the central role Medicaid now plays in our health insurance system. For its first forty-nine years, Medicaid covered less than half of the nation’s poor. Today, one in five Americans have Medicaid coverage during the course of a year, and that number soon will increase to one in four given the insurance expansions enacted through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Medicaid now effectively functions as social insurance for many of its enrollees. In this …


Newsroom: 'Fireside Chat' With Solicitor General, Roger Williams University School Of Law Feb 2015

Newsroom: 'Fireside Chat' With Solicitor General, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.


Corporate Law After Hobby Lobby, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, David K. Millon Jan 2015

Corporate Law After Hobby Lobby, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, David K. Millon

Scholarly Articles

We evaluate the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial decision in the Hobby Lobby case from the perspective of state corporate law. We argue that the Court is correct in holding that corporate law does not mandate that business corporations limit themselves to pursuit of profit. Rather, state law allows incorporation for any lawful purpose. We elaborate on this important point and also explain what it means for a corporation to “exercise religion.” In addition, we address the larger implications of the Court’s analysis for an accurate understanding both of state law’s essentially agnostic stance on the question of corporate purpose and …


King V. Burwell And The Triumph Of Selective Contextualism, Jonathan H. Adler, Michael F. Cannon Jan 2015

King V. Burwell And The Triumph Of Selective Contextualism, Jonathan H. Adler, Michael F. Cannon

Faculty Publications

King v. Burwell presented the question of whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) authorizes the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to issue tax credits for the purchase of health insurance through Exchanges established by the federal government. The King plaintiffs alleged an IRS rule purporting to authorize tax credits in federal Exchanges was unlawful because the text of the ACA expressly authorizes tax credits only in Exchanges “established by the State.” The Supreme Court conceded the plain meaning of the operative text, and that Congress defined “State” to exclude the federal government. The Court nevertheless disagreed …


King, Chevron, And The Age Of Textualism, Abigail R. Moncrieff Jan 2015

King, Chevron, And The Age Of Textualism, Abigail R. Moncrieff

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the King v. Burwell oral arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts—usually one of the more active members of the Court—asked only one substantive question, addressed to the Solicitor General: "If you're right about Chevron [deference applying to this case], that would indicate that a subsequent administration could change [your] interpretation?" As it turns out, that question was crucial to Roberts's thinking and to the 6-3 opinion he authored, but almost all commentators either undervalued or misunderstood the question's import (myself included). The result of Roberts's actual thinking was an unfortunate outcome for Chevron—and potentially for the rule of law—despite …


Will Uncooperative Federalism Survive Nfib?, Abigail R. Moncrieff, Jonathan Dinerstein Jan 2015

Will Uncooperative Federalism Survive Nfib?, Abigail R. Moncrieff, Jonathan Dinerstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the end, the Supreme Court's federalism jurisprudence seems to run contrary to its stated goals. The New Federalism era, up to and including NFIB, creates an incentive for the national government to flex its own muscles more, not less. Maybe that result will be good for voters' clarity and for uniformity of national policy, but it is not good for uncooperative federalism or for states' autonomy—the values that the Supreme Court seems to be trying to protect.


The Universality Of Medicaid At Fifty, Nicole Huberfeld Jan 2015

The Universality Of Medicaid At Fifty, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

This essay, written for the Yale Law School symposium on The Law of Medicare and Medicaid at 50, explores how the law of Medicaid after the ACA creates a meaningful principle of universalism by shifting from fragmentation and exclusivity to universality and inclusivity. The universality principle provides a new trajectory for all of American health care, one that is not based on individual qualities that are unrelated to medical care but rather grounded in non-judgmental principles of unification and equalization (if not outright solidarity). This essay examines the ACA's legislative reformation, which led to universality, and its quantifiable effects. The …


Prompt On The King V. Burwell Case, David Gamage Jan 2015

Prompt On The King V. Burwell Case, David Gamage

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court will be deciding the fate of Obamacare — in the case of King v. Burwell. Also, once again, the future of American healthcare reform will turn on how the Supreme Court reviews a provision of Obamacare that was enacted through the tax code.

So far, the debates over King v. Burwell have largely focused on Constitutional law, Administrative law, and other non-tax-law considerations. Might there be unique tax law perspectives that could be brought in to better illuminate these debates? Does it matter that the provision being reviewed (I.R.C. Sec. 36B) was enacted through …


Two Excursions Into Current U.S. Supreme Court Opinion-Writing, Paul F. Rothstein Jan 2015

Two Excursions Into Current U.S. Supreme Court Opinion-Writing, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the last weeks in June, 2015, as the present term of the U.S. Supreme Court drew to a close, many controversial and important decisions were handed down by the Court. The substance of the decisions has been written about extensively. Two of the decisions in particular, though, caught my eye as a teacher of legal techniques, not for the importance of the subject of the particular decision, but for what they may illustrate in a teachable fashion about at least some opinion writing. The two cases are Ohio v. Clark (June 18, 2015) interpreting the Confrontation Clause of the …