Law Commons^™

Health Care And The Balance Billing Problem: The Solution Is The Common Law Of Contracts And Strengthening The Free Market For Health Care., George A. Nation Iii

George A Nation III

A large and growing group of insured patients is being unfairly burdened by hospitals’ exorbitant chargemaster prices. The burden is brought to bear on these patients through a process known as balance billing. For a variety of reasons hospital networks are becoming narrower as hospital systems contract with fewer insurers, and as a result, more and more patients are receiving balance bills. The practice of balance billing puts upward pressure on health care prices in general. That is, this practice leads to higher prices across the board for the uninsured, the out-of-network insured and even the in-network insured. This article …

Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. V. Bartlett: A Need For “Explicit” Congressional Action And State Tort Law Reform, Kara A. Ritter

Kara A Ritter

No abstract provided.

The Continuing Battle Of Fda Regulation Of Dietary Supplements And Their Adverse Affect On Young Adults And Other Individuals, Andrew Bernard Jaffe

Andrew Bernard Jaffe

THE CONTINUING BATTLE OF FDA REGULATION OF DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS AND THEIR ADVERSE AFFECT ON YOUNG ADULTS AND OTHER INDIVIDUALS

Abstract

Ever since the enactment of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has struggled to regulate dietary supplements. This is due to the definition of dietary supplements as foods in the act. This gives supplement manufacturers greater loopholes when introducing supplements on the market. The FDA’s inability to regulate dietary supplements efficiently has been present for decades. Multiple battles are still occurring today which is proven to have an adverse effect …

The Aca’S Tobacco Use Rating: Implementation, Inconsistencies And Ironies, Mary Ann Chirba, Alice Noble

Mary Ann Chirba

As the Affordable Care Act continues toward full implementation, the law’s complexity is on full display. As we have noted in earlier writings, the ACA continues the federal tradition of using a fragmented approach to allocating oversight responsibilities among federal and state regulators, while maintaining the role of private actors in health care insurance and delivery systems. The result is a dizzying array of plan types (self-insured, fully insured, small market, individual market, large market, grandfathered) subject to an equally dizzying blend of ACA, ERISA, and individual state requirements.

Medical Malpractice, The Affordable Care Act And State Provider Shield Laws: More Myth Than Necessity?, Mary Ann Chirba, Alice Noble

Mary Ann Chirba

Given the ambitions and reach of the Affordable Care Act, confusion about its intended and inadvertent impact is inevitable. Since its enactment in 2010, the ACA has raised legitimate and less grounded concerns among various stakeholders ranging from individuals and employers facing coverage mandates to States deciding whether and how to implement the Act’s Medicaid expansions. One item has received far less attention even though it weighs heavily on any provider engaged in the clinical practice of medicine: the ACA’s impact on medical malpractice liability. The Act does little to address medical malpractice head on. Nevertheless, physicians and other providers, …

Our Bodies, Our Cells: Fda Regulation Of Autologous Adult Stem Cell Therapies, Mary Ann Chirba, Alice Noble

Mary Ann Chirba

Stem cells have been an endless source of fascination and controversy since Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996. This month’s announcement of a cloned human embryo from a single skin cell came on the heels of Sir John B. Gurdon and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka’s receipt of the 2012 Nobel for Physiology and Medicine for their work with induced pluripotent stem cells. Pluripotent stem cells can be embryonic or induced. Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) can generally be obtained from human embryos or by cloning embryos through somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), as was done for Dolly. Gurdon and Yamanaka demonstrated …

Licensure Of Health Care Professionals: The Consumer's Case For Abolition, Charles H. Baron

Charles H. Baron

While state medical licensure laws ostensibly are intended to promote worthwhile goals, such as the maintenance of high standards in health care delivery, this Article argues that these laws in practice are detrimental to consumers. The Article takes the position that licensure contributes to high medical care costs and stifles competition, innovation and consumer autonomy. It concludes that delicensure would expand the range of health services available to consumers and reduce patient dependency, and that these developments would tend to make medical practice more satisfying to consumers and providers of health care services.

Could You Repeat That Please? Forty-Five Years Of Testing Pesticides On People, Barbara R. Leiterman Esq.

Barbara R. Leiterman Esq.

Little has been published in the literature about pesticide experiments conducted on human subjects. Yet there were at least twenty-two tests between 1967 and 2011 in which people were intentionally exposed to specific doses of pesticides. Almost all of these experiments violated scientific ethics and human rights. This article aims to describe those tests and their shortcomings, and explore the laws and regulations that incentivize such human experimentation. Ironically, as the public desire for pesticide safety increases, so does the industry’s motivation to test pesticides on people. Bringing these pesticide experiments to light, expanding the public discourse on the subject …

Minors & Cosmetic Surgery: An Argument For State Intervention, Derrick Diaz

Derrick Diaz Mr.

This article focuses on whether a state may intervene to prevent minors from obtaining medically unnecessary cosmetic surgery. The article concludes that a state may prohibit such a procedure without running afoul of parental liberty interests by showing severe risk of harm to the minor. Furthermore, the article proposes that minors not have access to cosmetic surgery unless found by a court to be medically necessary. If medical necessity has been shown, then the parental presumption must control. However, if medical necessity has not been shown, then the service should be prohibited the same as any regulated service or product …

The New First Amendment And Its Implications For Combating Obesity Through Regulation Of Advertising, Tamara R. Piety, Samantha Graff

Tamara R. Piety

This chapter reviews the recent decisions of the Supreme Court as they bear on attempts to combat childhood obesity through regulating marketing and concludes that attempts to regulate marketing will face substantial First Amendment obstacles in the courts.

Readability Studies: How Technocentrism Can Compromise Research And Legal Determinations, Louis J. Sirico Jr.

Working Paper Series

One way to determine whether consumers understand a document is to use a readability formula to assign it a score. These formulas calculate readability by counting such variables as the number of words and syllables in a passage or document. The idea of readability formulas has been defined as “an equation which combines those text features that best predict text difficulty. The equation is usually developed by studying the relationship between text features (e.g., words, sentences) and text difficulty (e.g., reading comprehension, reading rate, and expert judgment of difficulty).” Even though readability formulas are mechanical and imperfect, they are easy …

Cold Comfort Pharmacy: Pharmacist Tort Liability For Conscientious Refusals To Dispense Emergency Contraception, Kristen Marttila Gast

ExpressO

The past several years have seen an increasing number of pharmacists refuse to dispense emergency contraception, an effective, post-coital form of contraception, on the grounds that the drug violates their personal beliefs. This Article addresses the impact of those pharmacist refusals under existing principles of tort law. The Article draws on existing pharmacy case law, state-specific refusal clauses, and ethics statements promulgated by professional pharmacy associations to investigate whether pharmacists have a legal duty to dispense emergency contraception, notwithstanding religious or ethical objections. Concluding that in most states, such a legal duty does exist, the Article develops a “wrongful conception” …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Disability Discrimination In Long-Term Care: Using The Fair Housing Act To Prevent Illegal Screening In Admissions To Nursing Homes And Assisted Living Facilities, Eric M. Carlson

ExpressO

Nursing homes and assisted living facilities routinely require applicants to disclose an extensive amount of medical information. Not infrequently, these long-term care facilities use the information to deny admission to those applicants with relatively greater care needs. These denials constitute illegal discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, but generally consumers are unaware of these protections or find litigation too expensive and time-consuming under their generally difficult circumstances.

These illegal denials of service could be limited by active enforcement of the Fair Housing Act’s no-inquiry regulation, which prohibits a housing provider from inquiring into an applicant’s …

In Sickness, Health, And Cyberspace: Protecting The Security Of Electronic Private Health Information, Sharona Hoffman, Andy Podgurski

ExpressO

The electronic processing of health information provides considerable benefits to patients and health care providers at the same time that it creates serious risks to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the data. The Internet provides a conduit for rapid and uncontrolled dispersion and trafficking of illicitly-obtained private health information, with far-reaching consequences to the unsuspecting victims. In order to address such threats to electronic private health information, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services enacted the HIPAA Security Rule, which thus far has received little attention in the legal literature. This article presents a critique of the Security …

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Mandatory Recall Authority: A Sensible And Minimalist Approach To Improving Food Safety, Michael T. Roberts

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Patent Wars In The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death: The Pharmaceutical Industry, Ethics And Global Trade, Uche Ewelukwa

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Internet Pharmacies And The Need For A New Federalism: Protecting Consumers While Increasing Access To Prescription Drugs, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In this article I will argue that Internet pharmacies pose a significant public health problem, as they raise the classic eternal triangle of health care issues--access, quality, and financing--in a new technological context. Part II describes the phenomena of Internet pharmacies, and Part III reviews the present regulatory scheme. Part IV explains why the current legal framework is inadequate to address the public health and safety problems posed by Internet pharmacies, focusing particularly on the jurisdictional, constitutional, and practical obstacles to effective state oversight of Internet pharmacies. Part V argues that comprehensive federal oversight of Internet prescribing and dispensing is …

Licensure Of Health Care Professionals: The Consumer's Case For Abolition, Charles Baron

Charles H. Baron

While state medical licensure laws ostensibly are intended to promote worthwhile goals, such as the maintenance of high standards in health care delivery, this Article argues that these laws in practice are detrimental to consumers. The Article takes the position that licensure contributes to high medical care costs and stifles competition, innovation and consumer autonomy. It concludes that delicensure would expand the range of health services available to consumers and reduce patient dependency, and that these developments would tend to make medical practice more satisfying to consumers and providers of health care services.