Law Commons^™

The Elderly And Health Care Rationing, George P. Smith Ii

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “The allocation of health care resources involves a societal determination of what resources should be devoted to a particular program. The allocation process is typically performed on a ―macro‖ level, with allocation decisions often affecting only statistical lives. In contrast to the identifiable lives often affected by health care rationing, statistical lives affected by allocation decisions are much more readily sacrificed. A common means of deciding health care allocation is through political processes. Government decisions pertaining to health care spending and regulation typically involve allocation determinations. For example, the Medicare and Medicaid programs allocate resources for numerous purposes. Hospitals, …

Universal Health Care, American Pragmatism, And The Ethics Of Health Policy: Questioning Political Efficacy, Daniel S. Goldberg

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “This article will explore the conceptual implications of applying ethical critique and analysis to health policy. This is not to imply any reductionist conception of health policy in which ethics is absent. As Deborah Stone and John W. Kingdon both note, policy is fraught with ethical implications, and value prioritization is a sine qua non for health policy. Nevertheless, I wish to suggest that there are some conceptually significant distinctions in thinking of the ethics of health policy as opposed to thinking separately about ethics and about health policy. Moreover, these distinctions themselves are of value, both in thinking …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Spring 2009

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Interview With John Warner By Brien Williams, John W. Warner

George J. Mitchell Oral History Project

Biographical Note
John William Warner was born February 18, 1927, to John W. Warner and Martha Budd Warner. He grew up in Washington, D.C. and was graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1945. He enlisted in the Navy after high school and is a veteran of World War II. After leaving the service he attended Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, graduating in 1949. He attended law school at the University of Virginia but left to serve in the Marines during the Korean War; subsequently, he received his law degree from George Washington University in 1953, served as …

Interview With Harold Ickes By Diane Dewhirst, Harold M. Ickes

George J. Mitchell Oral History Project

Biographical Note
Harold M. Ickes was born on September 4, 1939, in Baltimore, Maryland, to Harold L. Ickes and Jane Dahlman. His father served as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior. He attended high school at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., was graduated from Stanford University in 1964 with a degree in economics, and earned his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1967. He was a civil rights activist during his student years in the ‘60s, spending the summers of 1964 and 1965 registering African American voters in Louisiana and Mississippi. In 1966, he became involved …

Interview With Chris Mann By Mike Hastings, Christopher 'Chris' Mann

George J. Mitchell Oral History Project

Biographical Note
Christopher Mann was born December 19, 1962, in Augusta, Maine. His parents were Alden and Deana Mann. His father was a Maine native who worked for the State Bureau of Banks and Banking as the director of Securities. Chris grew up in Augusta, attended Cony High School and was graduated with a degree in political science from the University of Southern Maine. He worked on Joe Brennan’s 1988 congressional campaign. After that, Mary McAleney offered him a position doing research for the state legislature. He later moved to Washington, D.C., to work in the mailroom for Senator Mitchell’s …

The Physician Payments Sunshine Act And The Problem Of Pharmaceutical Companies' Influence Over Prescribing Physicians, Andrew L. Younkins

Andrew L Younkins

Recently, concerns over physicians' conflict of interest have increased as the details of some doctors' consulting relationships with pharmaceutical companies surface. In an effort to cleanse medicine of egregiously conflicted doctors, Senator Grassley proposed of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act ("PPSA") in the Senate last year. The Act mandates reporting of uncommonly large payments by drug companies to doctors, but does not confront the panoply of more subtle yet more powerful methods the drug industry uses to influence prescriber behavior. This paper argues that industry-sponsored CME, small gifts, drug samples and drug detailers unconsciously influence physician prescribing behavior, and that …

Interview With Anita Jensen By Diane Dewhirst, Anita Jensen

George J. Mitchell Oral History Project

Biographical Note
Anita Holst-Jensen was born in Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz), East Germany, on March 16, 1945, to Rasma Rasmanis and Arvids Lusis. Her mother emigrated from Latvia in September of 1944, and Jensen was born in a displaced persons camp, where she lived until she was four years old. Her family eventually emigrated to Australia in 1949, settling in Victoria. Jensen received all of her schooling in Australia and went to university in Melbourne. She married Henning Holst-Jensen, and in 1966 they moved to Perth. When immigration into the United States became possible in 1968, they relocated to the Washington, D.C. …

When Patients Say No (To Save Money): An Essay On The Tectonics Of Health Law., Mark A. Hall, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

The ultimate aim of health care public policy is good care at good prices. Managed care stalled at achieving this goal by trying to influence providers, so health policy has turned to the only market-based option left: treating patients like consumers. Health insurance and tax policy are now pressuring patients to spend their own money when they select health plans, providers, and treatments. Expecting patients to choose what they need at the price they want, consumerists believe that market competition will constrain costs while optimizing quality. This classic form of consumerism is today's watchword. This Article evaluates this ideal type …

The Life Science Lawyer, Erin Albert

Butler University Books

Health care and life sciences are increasingly complex. There are many global players in life sciences and healthcare-patients, governments, hospitals, managed care companies, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies and pharmacies are only a few. With this increasing complexity comes a higher demand for hybrid professionals who can translate both the science as well as the legal issues surrounding this complicated environment. In the US, there are thousands of life science lawyers--people who have both a scientific/healthcare background and also who have gone on to law school (or in one case, vice versa). This book explores the following through interviews: …

Review Of Reforming Medicare: Options, Tradeoffs, And Opportunities, Jill R. Horwitz

Reviews

Medicare needs fixing. The program has its strengths; it is popular among beneficiaries, has very low administrative costs (maybe too low), and, since its inception, has greatly reduced financial risk exposure among beneficiaries. Nevertheless, it is unaffordable and inefficient. Jeanne Lambrew and Henry Aaron take up both of these challenges for Medicare reform in great detail in Reforming Medicare.

Giving In To Baby Markets: Regulation Without Prohibition, Sonia M. Suter

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The commodification of reproductive material evokes different responses. Some argue that the sale of reproductive material should be prohibited. Others argue in favor of unfettered baby markets on principle or to achieve broad-scale access to reproductive technologies. In this Article, the author responds to the emergence of baby markets with great skepticism, but reluctant acceptance. Drawing on a relational conception of autonomy and self-definition, she argues that commodification of reproductive material is intrinsically harmful. Moreover, such commodification poses a number of consequential harms. Nevertheless, in spite of these concerns, the author "gives in" to baby markets, which is to say …

Pursuing The Perfect Mother: Why America's Criminalization Of Maternal Substance Abuse Is Not The Answer- A Compartive Legal Analysis, Linda C. Fentiman

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In this Article the author will examine not only the substantive legal differences between the United States, Canada, and France, but will also explore how these legal rules fit within a broader social, political, and religious setting. This Article will pursue four lines of inquiry. First, it will briefly chronicle the history of criminal prosecution of pregnant women in America and show how these prosecutions have become markedly more aggressive over the last twenty years. Second, it will situate these prosecutions in the full context of American law and culture, demonstrating how the fetus has received increasing legal recognition in …

The Ethical Foundations Of Consumer-Driven Health Care, Marshall B. Kapp

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

The Emergence Of Mandatory Wellness Programs In The United States: Welcoming, Or Worrisome?, Daniel Charles Rubenstein

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Working Sick: Lessons Of Chronic Illness For Health Care Reform, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

Although chronic illness is generally associated with the elderly or disabled, chronic conditions are widespread among working-age adults and pose significant challenges for employer-based health care plans. Indeed, a recent study found that the number of working-age adults with a major chronic condition has grown by 25 percent over the past 10 years, to a total of nearly 58 million in 2006. Chronic illness imposes significant costs on workers, employers, and the overall economy. This population accounts for three-quarters of all personal medical spending in the United States, and a Milken Institute study recently estimated that lost workdays and lower …

Finding A Cure: The Case For Regulation And Oversight Of Electronic Health Record Systems, Sharona Hoffman, Andy Podgurski

Faculty Publications

In the foreseeable future, it is likely that the familiar, paper-based patient medical files will become a thing of the past. On April 26, 24, President George W. Bush announced a plan to ensure that all Americans' health records are computerized within ten years and to establish a National Health Information Network. Many advocates are enthusiastically promoting the adoption of health information technology (HIT) and electronic health record (HER) systems as a means to improve U.S. health care.

HER systems often not only serve as record-keeping systems, but also have multiple capabilities, including drug ordering, decision support, alerts concerning patient …

The Patient Life: Can Consumers Direct Health Care?, Carl E. Schneider, Mark A. Hall

Articles

The ultimate aim of health care policy is good care at good prices. Managed care failed to achieve this goal through influencing providers, so health policy has turned to the only market-based option left: treating patients like consumers. Health insurance and tax policy now pressure patients to spend their own money when they select health plans, providers, and treatments. Expecting patients to choose what they need at the price they want, consumerists believe that market competition will constrain costs while optimizing quality. This classic form of consumerism is today's health policy watchword. This article evaluates consumerism and the regulatory mechanism …

In Search Of An Enforceable Medical Malpractice Exculpatory Agreement: Introducing Confidential Contracts As A Solution To The Doctor-Patient Relationship Problem, Matthew Lawrence

Matthew B. Lawrence

Health Care And Human Rights After Auton And Chaoulli, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

The judicial approach to the interpretation of entitlement to health care under the Canadian Charter of Rights and human rights legislation has tended to swing between interventionist and non-interventionist poles. This article examines the post- Chaoulli case law on health care and the Charter of Rights and/or human rights legislation. It suggests that Chaoulli – whatever about its impact in the legislative arena – has had a somewhat limited impact to date on the case law concerning health care and that the Auton case has clearly had a greater impact to date. It argues that the subsequent case law points …