Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Legal Preparedness For Pandemic Influenza: Is Virginia Ready?, Kristen Digirolamo

Law Student Publications

This paper attempts to identify the legal issues at stake during a pandemic and how those issues need to be discussed as a whole when preparing. Part II of this paper will give a brief description of pandemic influenza and look at the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. Part III will examine the origins of legal authority during a pandemic at the federal, state, and local levels of government. Part IV will look at some of the specific legal issues that may arise during a pandemic and discuss what decision-makers need to be thinking about in order to plan comprehensively. …

Not So Hip?: The Expanded Burdens On And Consequences To Law Firms As Business Associates Under Hitech Modifications To Hipaa, Benjamin K. Hoover

Law Student Publications

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) governs the management of protected health information (“PHI”) by covered entities (e.g., health care providers) and their business associates. However, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (“HITECH”), contained within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, drastically alters the scope of HIPAA regulations with regard to business associates, including law firms that routinely handle the PHI governed by HIPAA. Under the HITECH Act, the definition of “business associate” is expanded, and these entities are treated as “covered” for purposes of the HIPAA security regulations; this …

Paying Women For Their Eggs For Use In Stem Cell Research, Pamela Foohey

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reexamining Models Of Disability And Applying Rationality, Morality, And Ethics To Support Disability Rights In Context Of Genetics, Gary C. Norman

Celebrating WCL Student Authors

The author discusses genetic and assistive reproduction science and technology in light of their impact on people with disabilities. Specifically, he focuses on the prism of the models through which disability is recognized. If applied in a manner such that the best facets of both models of disability can bear forth, then the position of the author, a person with a vision disability, is that his colleagues in the disability civil rights movement should not reflexively excoriate genetic and assisted reproduction science and technology. However, safeguarding people with disabilities, who are a discrete and insular minority across the globe, against …

Don't Bank On Big Medicine: The Virtue Of Specialty Hospitals, Robert Steinbuch

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Almshouses To Nursing Homes And Community Care: Lessons From Medicaid's History, Sidney D. Watson

All Faculty Scholarship

Home and community-based services are support and long-term care services that offer an alternative to institutional care for those who need assistance with life's daily activities. For Lois Curtis of Atlanta, one of the plaintiffs in the Olmstead v. L.C.¹ who spent most of her life in mental institutions, it means a live-in companion who helps her with the day-to-day activities of living in her own home, like managing finances, cooking meals, and keeping track of medications.² For Larry McAfee, another Georgian who was quadriplegic, community-based services involved round-the-clock personal care, wheelchair accessible bathrooms and kitchens, a specialized …

The State Health Insurance Assistance Program (Ship), Carol O'Shaughnessy

National Health Policy Forum

The State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP), created by section 4360 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1990 and administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), supports grants to states and jurisdictions to provide information, counseling, and assistance to Medicare beneficiaries and their families on Medicare and other health insurance questions. This publication describes the program and presents its funding history.

Oral Health Checkup: Progress In Tough Fiscal Times?, Cynthia Shirk

National Health Policy Forum

Almost ten years after the surgeon general’s report designating dental disease as the “silent epidemic,” the nation continues to struggle with adequate access to and utilization of dental services. This is particularly true for low-income individuals, who experience more than twice the amount of untreated dental disease as their higher-income peers. This issue brief reviews sources of dental coverage for low-income children and adults and the challenges these programs face. It highlights some examples of state Medicaid initiatives to improve access and utilization for children and the progress of these initiatives. Finally, it examines the potential effects of the economy …

Florida V. Hhs - Original Complaint, State Of Florida

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Litigation

No abstract provided.

Virginia V. Sebelius - Original Complaint, Commonwealth Of Virginia

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Litigation

No abstract provided.

Boehner’S Big Gift To The Drug Industry, Joanne Doroshow

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Conference Program

Health Law & Policy Conferences

No abstract provided.

The Ryan White Hiv/Aids Program, Jessamyn Taylor

National Health Policy Forum

This publication describes the basics of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, the largest federal program solely focused on treating people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States. The program funds cities, states, and community-based organizations to provide primary care, prescription drugs, and support services to low-income, uninsured, and underinsured people living with HIV/AIDS.

Reconstructing The Individual Mandate As An Escrow Account, Gregg D. Polsky

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The recent health care reform law's most controversial provision is the individual mandate, which imposes a fine on individuals who fail to obtain a minimum level of health insurance coverage. Many object to this policy, arguing that the government shouldn't force individuals to purchase health insurance. Others believe that the mandate is a necessary component to health care reform. What has been missed in the discussion is that Congress could restructure the individual mandate to avoid the requirement that individuals purchase health insurance while still fulfilling its principal function. The principal purpose of the mandate is not to require individuals …

Looking At The Initial Client Meeting Through An Interdisciplinary Lens: Applying Lessons From The Medical Profession To Law Teaching And Practice, Lisa Radtke Bliss

Faculty Publications By Year

In this essay a clinical law professor observes similarities in the way that physicians and lawyers interact with patients and clients during the initial consult/interview, based upon her experiences teaching in a medical legal partnership clinic.

Trimming The Fat: A Study Of Mandatory Nutritional Disclosure Laws And Excessive Judicial Deference, Charles R. Yates, Iii

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Conceiving Plan B: A Proposal To Resolve The Conflict Between Women And Conscientiously Objecting Pharmacists Over Access To Emergency Contraceptives, Joshua T. Shaw

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Combating Antimicrobial Resistance: Regulatory Strategies And Institutional Capacity, William M. Sage, David A. Hyman

Faculty Scholarship

Amnesia is a common, important, but rarely noted side effect of antibiotics. Apart from medical historians, few recall the severe morbidity and mortality once associated with acute bacterial infection. However, decades of antibiotic overuse and misuse have compromised the long-term availability and efficacy of these life-saving therapies. If designed and implemented appropriately, regulation can reduce the risk of bacterial infection, reserve antibiotics for circumstances where they are necessary, and rationalize the use of the most powerful agents. Regulation of antibiotic resistance can be justified, and should be guided, by both efficiency and fairness. A range of regulatory options are available--some …

The Medical Education Of Physicians, Jonathan Saxton

National Health Policy Forum

This background paper provides a descriptive overview of the process of education, licensing, certification, and continuing education involved in becoming and continuing to practice as a physician.

Dangers In Prescription Drugs: Filling A Private Law Gap In The Healthcare Debate, David G. Owen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Making Sense Of The Health Care Reform Debate, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

It has been bemusing to behold how ill-informed, mis-informed, and even dis-informed much of the current debate over health care reform has been these past several months. Some of the trouble surely has stemmed from bad faith on the part of some protagonists. Another part of the trouble has stemmed from ineffective communication on the part of other protagonists. Much of our trouble, however, might stem from less than full clarity on all of our parts about two facts. The first is that in talking about “health care reform” as a public policy issue, we are actually talking about social …

Perceiving Others As Different: A Discussion On The Stigmatization Of The Mentally Ill, Marchell Goins, Kyneitres Good, Cori Harley

Annals of Health Law and Life Sciences

This commentary on the stigmatization of people with mental illness explores social perceptions of them as dangerous and uncivilized. The authors discuss how the legal system suggests that these are people who should be ousted from the community while mental health professionals attempt to reiterate the fact that these individuals are simply human. The authors describe ways people with mental illness have been subjected to discrimination, ridicule, and humiliation. This commentary discusses multiple perspectives of mental illness, from past to present, and how those perspectives influenced social, legal, and psychological frameworks.

Charter Rights & Health Care Funding: A Typology Of Canadian Health Rights Litigation, Colleen M. Flood, Y.Y. Brandon Chen

Annals of Health Law and Life Sciences

Canadian health consumers have increasingly relied on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to demand certain therapies and reasonably timely access to care. Organizing these cases into a 5-part typology, we examine how a rights-based discourse affects allocation of health care resources. First, successful Charter challenges can, in theory, lead to courts granting and enforcing positive rights to therapies or to timely care. Second, courts may grant a right to certain health services; however, subsequently government fails to deliver on this right. Third, successful litigation may create negative rights, i.e. rights to access care or private health insurance without government …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Winter 2010

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Pre-Mortem Cryopreservation: Recognizing A Patient’S Right To Die In Order To Live, Ryan Sullivan

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

I. Introduction

II. The Science of Cryonic Preservation ... A. History of Cryonics ... B. The Process ... C. Current Science ... 1. Cryobiology ... a. Successful Births with Once-Frozen Embryos ... b. If You Can Thaw a Frozen Dog ... c. Surgeries Performed during Suspended Animation ... d. Successful Revival after Three Hours of Clinical Death ... 2. Advancements in Nanotechnology ... 3. Obstacles to Overcome

III. Relevant Law ... A. Laws Governing Cryonics ... B. Right to Die and Assisted Suicide ... C. States’ Interests Are Not Compelling ... 1. Interest in Preserving Life and Preventing Suicide ... …

Introduction: Remembering Stephanie Feldman Aleong, Kathy L. Cerminara

Faculty Scholarship

Kathy Cerminara, Introduction: Remembering Stephanie Feldman Aleong, 34 Nova Law Review 565 (2010).

From Eugenics To The "New" Genetics: "The Play's The Thing", Karen H. Rothenberg

Faculty Scholarship

Genetics occupies a place in the public imagination with which few areas of science can compete. It is popularly understood to be the “science of life,” concerned with the essence of humanity: a subject that generates both awe and fear. These divergent emotions are encapsulated in the “promise versus peril” debate: the promise of an end to human disease is countered by the peril embodied in the discriminatory capacity of genetic essentialism. This debate has become ingrained in popular culture, and its dramatic potential has been effectively realized in theatre.

Plays have always been written and performed as expressions of …

Cognition-Enhancing Drugs: Can We Say No?, Frank Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

Normative analysis of cognition-enhancing drugs frequently weighs the liberty interests of drug users against egalitarian commitments to a "level playing field." Yet those who would refuse to engage in neuroenhancement may well find their liberty to do so limited in a society where such drugs are widespread. To the extent that unvarnished emotional responses are world-disclosive, neurocosmetic practices also threaten to provide a form of faulty data to their users. This essay examines underappreciated liberty-based and epistemic rationales for regulating cognition-enhancing drugs.

Access To Medicine In An Era Of Fractal Inequality, Frank Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

Those in the richest countries have far more income and wealth than those in poor countries. Moreover, the most fortunate in the richest countries – particularly those in the top centile of the income distribution – are far richer than those around them. Most dramatically, even within that top centile, the richest of the rich have far more resources than even their elite peers. Like fractals, the patterns of distribution repeat at various levels.

This pattern of fractal inequality ensures that spending that seems trivial to those at the top of an income distribution can overwhelm the purchasing power of …

Mental Health Courts: Serving Justice And Promoting Recovery, Ginger Lerner Wren

Annals of Health Law and Life Sciences

This article begins and ends with a call for more empirical research to understand the connection between societal views of mental illness and the legal system. The author asserts that changing social perceptions of mental illness certainly affect legal outcomes and commitment levels, but the degree remains unknown. This article explores the above two topics through the framework of the Circuit Court 'split' regarding the Constitutional rights of persons committed to state mental health institutions. A main facet of the 'split' is centered on the Circuits' disagreement about whether or not all mentally ill patients committed to institutions deserve the …