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Full-Text Articles in Law

Piercing The Veil: The Limits Of Brain Death As A Legal Fiction, Seema K. Shah Feb 2015

Piercing The Veil: The Limits Of Brain Death As A Legal Fiction, Seema K. Shah

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Brain death is different from the traditional, biological conception of death. Although there is no possibility of a meaningful recovery, considerable scientific evidence shows that neurological and other functions persist in patients accurately diagnosed as brain dead. Elsewhere with others, I have argued that brain death should be understood as an unacknowledged status legal fiction. A legal fiction arises when the law treats something as true, though it is known to be false or not known to be true, for a particular legal purpose (like the fiction that corporations are persons). Moving towards greater transparency, it is legally and ethically …


Transplant Candidates And Substance Use: Adopting Rational Health Policy For Resource Allocation, Erin Minelli, Bryan A. Liang Apr 2011

Transplant Candidates And Substance Use: Adopting Rational Health Policy For Resource Allocation, Erin Minelli, Bryan A. Liang

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Organ transplant candidates are often denied life saving organs on account of their medical marijuana drug use. Individuals who smoke medicinal marijuana are typically classified as substance abusers, and ultimately deemed ineligible for transplantation, despite their receipt of the drug under a physician's supervision and prescription. However, patients who smoke cigarettes or engage in excessive alcohol consumption are routinely considered for placement on the national organ transplant waiting list. Transplant facilities have the freedom to regulate patient selection criteria with minimal oversight. As a result, the current organ allocation system in the United States is rife with inconsistencies and results …


Risky Ventures: The Impact Of Irs Health Care Joint Venture Policy, Roger P. Meyers Dec 2009

Risky Ventures: The Impact Of Irs Health Care Joint Venture Policy, Roger P. Meyers

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

IRS oversight of joint ventures between exempt and for-profit organizations has undergone substantial change over the past thirty years. This change has important consequences for the health care industry, where joint ventures have grown increasingly common. In the face of unclear guidance and aggressive enforcement of exemption-policing tools such as the private benefit doctrine and the control test, a hospital risks revocation of its tax-exempt status, or liability for unrelated business income tax, when it engages in a joint venture directly. It may be able to eliminate this risk by operating the same joint venture through a for-profit subsidiary; however, …


"What's Good Is Bad, What's Bad Is Good, You'll Find Out When You Reach The Top, You're On The Bottom": Are The Americans With Disabilities Act (And Olmstead V. L. C.) Anything More Than "Idiot Wind?", Michael L. Perlin Dec 2001

"What's Good Is Bad, What's Bad Is Good, You'll Find Out When You Reach The Top, You're On The Bottom": Are The Americans With Disabilities Act (And Olmstead V. L. C.) Anything More Than "Idiot Wind?", Michael L. Perlin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Mental disability law is contaminated by "sanism, " an irrational prejudice similar to such other irrational prejudices as racism and sexism. The passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-a statute that focused specifically on questions of stereotyping and stigma-appeared at first to offer an opportunity to deal frontally with sanist attitudes and, optimally, to restructure the way that citizens with mental disabilities were dealt with by the remainder of society. However, in its first decade, the ADA did not prove to be a panacea for such persons. The Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C. - ruling that …


Questioning Traditional Antitrust Presumptions: Price And Non-Price Competition In Hospital Markets, Peter J. Hammer Jul 1999

Questioning Traditional Antitrust Presumptions: Price And Non-Price Competition In Hospital Markets, Peter J. Hammer

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Hospital mergers challenge basic assumptions about the effects of market power in the health care industry. Antitrust courts have struggled with claims that hospital mergers may in fact reduce costs and lower prices. This Article assesses the validity of these economic claims in the context of an industry that has undergone radical transformations in recent years. The Article also explores how such arguments should be treated as a matter of antitrust doctrine in an area of the law that relies heavily on market share presumptions and rule-based decision making. The Article contends that courts should employ a total welfare standard …


Drive-Through Deliveries: In Support Of Federal Legislation To Mandate Insurer Coverage Of Medically Sound Minimum Lengths Of Postpanum Stays For Mothers And Newborns, Freeman L. Farrow Jun 1996

Drive-Through Deliveries: In Support Of Federal Legislation To Mandate Insurer Coverage Of Medically Sound Minimum Lengths Of Postpanum Stays For Mothers And Newborns, Freeman L. Farrow

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

President Clinton signed the Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act of 1996 into law on September 26, 1996. The Act requires insurers that provide maternity benefits to cover medically sound minimum lengths of inpatient, postpartum stays according to the joint guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. This Note discusses the historical context in which the necessity for passage of protective legislation arose, the interplay between state and federal statutes that created the need for federal legislation to provide desired protections for postpartum patients and examines the provisions of the Act. This …


Paradox And Pandora's Box: The Tragedy Of Current Right-To-Die Jurisprudence, Cathaleen A. Roach Oct 1991

Paradox And Pandora's Box: The Tragedy Of Current Right-To-Die Jurisprudence, Cathaleen A. Roach

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Article examines the trilogy of recent right-to-die cases and contrasts the results of those cases with recent national opinion polls and statistical surveys of the issue. Part II examines federal and state legislative responses to the debate. It suggests that both the courts and legislatures are out of sync with an emerging national consensus on the death-with- dignity debate. In fact, the federal legislative response may only exacerbate the problem. Instead of creating new rights, it feeds individuals into the existing state network, which is a quagmire of confusing and inequitable statutory provisions. Part III examines …


Abusing The Patient: Medicare Fraud And Abuse And Hospital-Physician Incentive Plans, Kathryn A. Krecke Oct 1986

Abusing The Patient: Medicare Fraud And Abuse And Hospital-Physician Incentive Plans, Kathryn A. Krecke

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I provides a background discussion of the PPS, DRGs, and incentive plans. Part II focuses on the fraud and abuse provisions of the Medicare statute and argues that incentive plans violate the plain language · of the statute, which prohibits any knowing and willful remuneration for the inducement of referrals. Part III concentrates on the fraudulent and abusive practices that incentive plans encourage. The plans frustrate legislative intent because they encourage practices that subvert the cost-containment purposes of the PPS and have an adverse effect on patient care.


The Medicare Rx: Prospective Pricing To Effect Cost Containment, H. Lynda Kugel Apr 1986

The Medicare Rx: Prospective Pricing To Effect Cost Containment, H. Lynda Kugel

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note analyzes the impact of changing hospital reimbursement while maintaining charge-based reimbursement for physicians on hospital-physician relationships and on cost and quality of care. This Note contends that if the stated goals of redirecting incentives and containing costs are to be realized, physicians must be drawn into the revised reimbursement scheme. An indirect, aggregate approach is advocated to maintain the integrity of the physician-patient relationship and to avoid a direct financial impact upon the physician regarding patient care decisions. Part I will briefly examine the reasons for changing hospital reimbursement from retrospective cost-based reimbursement to prospective fixed rates. Part …


Hospital Medical Staff: When Are Privilege Denials Judicially Reviewable?, David Hejna Oct 1977

Hospital Medical Staff: When Are Privilege Denials Judicially Reviewable?, David Hejna

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The relationship between a hospital and its medical staff is unique. Most physicians serving as hospital staff are not salaried employees . Rather, they use hospital facilities to care for their patients pursuant to "staff privileges" granted by the hospital's board of governors. Staff privileges at one area hospital are practically indispensable for the modern physician, and privileges at a conveniently located hospital are considered important. By extending staff privileges the hospital benefits from having a staff large enough to ensure maximum use of its facilities. The public benefits when an adequate number of qualified physicians have access to hospital …


The Michigan Abortion Refusal Act, G. Michael White Jan 1975

The Michigan Abortion Refusal Act, G. Michael White

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Since the United States Supreme Court handed down the landmark decisions of Roe v. Wade andDoe v. Bolton, which placed constitutional limitations, on state regulation of abortions, efforts have been made on the federal and state levels to blunt the effect of those cases. One prevalent reaction has been the enactment of state "conscience clause" legislation, such as the Michigan Abortion Refusal Act, which seeks to extend to all hospitals the right to refuse admission of abortion patients. This legislative note will consider whether the Michigan conscience clause is legally necessary to ensure the right it seeks to …


Indigents, Hospital Admissions And Equal Protection, Charles S. Derousie Jan 1972

Indigents, Hospital Admissions And Equal Protection, Charles S. Derousie

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The author surveyed ten hospitals in each of ten states, including hospitals of varying sizes and classifications. Five of the forty-five replies indicated the hospital did not admit all indigents in need of medical care. The primary reason given was that prospective patients not covered by hospital insurance or government programs such as Medicaid or Medicare were usually unable to produce a required preadmission deposit. This practice of requiring a preadmission deposit seems to be common.


Mental Illness And Criminal Commitment In Michigan, Grant H. Morris Jan 1971

Mental Illness And Criminal Commitment In Michigan, Grant H. Morris

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article concentrates on one vital issue: to what extent are differences in treatment justified because of a mentally ill person's "criminal" involvement. While the article is primarily concerned with Michigan institutions and Michigan statutes, the discussion and the solutions proposed are in many respects applicable to all states of the Union. Not only must all states reevaluate their policies toward criminal commitment of the mentally ill in light of ever-changing medical and penal theory, but they must also consider the developing constitutional concepts in this area. These constitutional issues are raised here only to the extent necessary to alert …


The Language Of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization: A Study In Sound And Fury, Steven H. Levinson Jan 1970

The Language Of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization: A Study In Sound And Fury, Steven H. Levinson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Involuntary civil commitment is the business of hospitalizing and treating, without their consent, persons whom a court, with the aid of professional diagnosticians, determines to be psychologically disturbed or mentally ill. The purpose of the present study will be to demonstrate that the medical diagnoses of mental illness which justify involuntary civil commitment are achieved on the basis of at least unreliable and at worst invalid sets of diagnostic categories and assessments. For the purpose of determining the reliability of these diagnostic findings, the author selected a representative sample of the involuntary mental hospitalization proceedings of the Wayne County Probate …


A Proposed Cure For The Intervention Blues, Lawrence E. Hard Apr 1969

A Proposed Cure For The Intervention Blues, Lawrence E. Hard

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article does not purport to provide a study of the doctrine of subrogation and the merits of that doctrine in the context of insurance coverage. There are several difficult questions which could be raised as to the proper role of subrogation in insurance litigation. This article assumes the propriety of extending the right of subrogation to the type of medical and hospital payment plans offered by the Services and analyses the device of intervention as a method of enforcing the Services' right to contractual subrogation.