Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Spending Programs And The New Roberts Court, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court is poised to place new limits on Congress’s spending power at the urging of states vying for regulatory dominance, particularly in health care and public health. This article is the first to highlight and catalog the throughlines of argumentation, which sparked after states successfully challenged the ACA but have grown into opposing more than Medicaid’s cooperative federalism. This means federal and state programs that heavily rely on federal spending power are at risk, so studying this pattern is imperative. The article begins with a descriptive account of increasing spending power challenges, which make use of converging factors …

Democratizing Health Data: A Legal Framework For Privacy-Preserving, Government-Led Ai Collaboration, Nicole Nigri

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Fair Share Gap For Antibacterial Innovation: An Observational Analysis Of Antibacterial Revenues In The G7 And Eu27, Maple Goh, Matt Mcenany, Rachel Freeman, Max Newton, Aaron S. Kesselheim, Kevin Outterson

Faculty Scholarship

Background

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses an important global health challenge, including insufficient investment in research and development. This study quantifies the required “fair share” contributions from the G7+EU27 countries for an effective set of pull incentives for antibacterial research and development.

Methods

Fair share targets within the G7+EU27 were calculated from GDP data and revenue targets from the literature, adjusted for inflation. Cefiderocol and ceftazidime-avibactam were selected as representative of key antibacterials. Revenues and volumes from IQVIA MIDAS data on these drugs were used to assess alignment with fair share targets. The study period was January 2015–December 2024.

Findings

The …

The Impact Of The Chevron Ruling On Medicare, Sana Sherali

DePaul Journal of Health Care Law

The Supreme Court’s historic decision to overturn the Chevron doctrine in June 2024 received national attention due to its implications for how much power agencies will hold in the years to come. The Chevron doctrine originally comes from the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council.Chevron addressed the requirements imposed on states by The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977. This decision set the precedent that if federal legislation is unclear or leaves an administrative gap, courts have to follow the regulatory agency’s interpretation of the law, as long as the interpretation is …

Heterogeneity In Hospital Consolidation, Christina Depasquale

DePaul Journal of Health Care Law

This paper examines the heterogeneity between two types of hospital consolidations—mergers and system-joinings. I examine changes in admissions, employment outcomes, beds in different medical units, surgeries, costs, case mix, and discharges. I find that hospital mergers and system-joiners are fundamentally different among almost all outcomes examined. Additionally, I extend my analysis by examining those hospitals that, at the time of consolidation, are closer to either their fellow merging hospital or a fellow system-member hospital. I find no meaningful correlation between distance and outcomes.

The Opioid Crisis: How The United States And Countries Abroad Are Making Strides, Maura Mcginnity

DePaul Journal of Health Care Law

The opioid epidemic has been an ongoing problem in the United States since the 1980s. The United States has had a very negative attitude towards individuals suffering from addiction. This attitude is clearly shown through the United States’ handling of the opioid crisis. Hundreds of thousands of individuals have died due to opioids. In the forty years since this epidemic became prevalent, the United States has still failed to implement a country-wide solution to combat the crisis. Certain states, like New York and Illinois, have made strides toward helping individuals suffering from opioid use disorder, but nationally, the country is …

Champions For Justice 2025 03-27-2025, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Sixth Annual Women In Law Leadership Lecture March 5, 2025, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Abundance And Other Food Fixations, Margot J. Pollans

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Although most people in the United States no longer devote the majority of their time to food production, processing, and distribution, food remains a daily fixation. This Article explores three driving food fixations--abundance, thinness, and health--and situates each against an inverse fear--scarcity, fatness, and illness, respectively. Mapping these threats onto U.S. food policy, this Article examines, among other policy arenas, food waste policy, nutrition and health claim labeling law, and food additive regulations. Across food policy, these fixations feed what this Article calls the “politics of abundance.” This politics helps to insulate the food industry from deeper systemic reform aimed …

Birth On Mother Earth: Mitigating The Maternal Health Crisis, Jill C. Engle

Faculty Scholarship

Maternal health outcomes in the U.S. are remarkably poor, especially when compared to those in other industrialized countries. For example, our maternal death rate is more than twice that of Canada’s. Women of color in the U.S. suffer maternal morbidity and mortality at rates considerably higher than white women. Indigenous women experience the worst maternal health outcomes of all. Yet, most maternal deaths and injuries are preventable. Furthermore, rates of maternal harm, including death, are lower when midwives and similar birthing attendants are involved. This Article is the first to fully explore the unique skillset of traditional birth attendants (TBAs). …

A One-Egg Wonder: Working To Cure Judicial Gender Bias And Increase Access To Pre-Embryos For Infertile Parties, Nicole Marks Kaufman

Cardozo Law Review

The first live birth of a child conceived from in vitro fertilization (“IVF”) happened in 1978. Today, over eight million children have been born through IVF procedures. The first dispute over the resulting pre-embryos was in 1990 when the Tennessee Supreme Court outlined a balancing approach with a presumption favoring non-use of the pre-embryos for courts to follow when resolving these matters. Numerous states have taken differing approaches—some have taken a contractual approach, others an approach requiring contemporaneous mutual consent before there can be a departure from the status quo, and very few state legislatures have directly addressed how to …

Making A Case For Legal Health Advocacy: A Socio-Legal Exploration Of The Law As A Tool For Physician Health Advocacy, Jeanne L. Webber

Master of Studies in Law Research Papers Repository

This paper grapples with the question of whether physicians have a unique moral, ethical or professional responsibility to engage in health advocacy. If so, what are the sources of that obligation, and how is advocacy understood in this context? These questions are addressed through a critical examination of the bio-medical, ethical, and legal literature and medical professional practice standards.

This research explores emergent themes in the literature including how advocacy is conceptualized, the challenges inherent in defining the term, and the consequent difficulty teaching health advocacy in medical education. This paper also examines how the value of advocacy is represented …

How Is Access To Legal Resources And Advocacy Foundational To Health Justice?, Yael Zakai Cannon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Health justice as a movement incorporates research about how to more effectively leverage law, policy, and institutions to dismantle inequitable power distributions and accompanying patterns of marginalization that are root causes of health inequity. Legal advocacy is key to health justice because it addresses patients’ health-harming legal needs in housing, public benefits, employment, education, immigration, domestic violence, and other areas of law. In medical-legal partnerships, lawyers and clinicians are uniquely positioned to jointly identify and remove legal barriers to patients’ health, advocate for structural reform, and build community power.

On The Human Right To Healthy Menstruation, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This short essay introduces the Bellagio Declaration on the Human Right to Healthy Menstruation, a statement signed by an interdisciplinary group of academics, artists, policymakers, clinicians, and practitioners in 2024. The Declaration frames the human right to healthy menstruation as including (1) non-discrimination on the basis of menstruation; (2) dignity in all matters related to menstruation; (3) access to facilities, resources, and supplies that facilitate the management of menstruation in a manner that is affordable and safe and that fosters a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment; (4) lifelong access to timely and medically accurate information about all aspects of menstruation; …

Public Health Impacts And Intra-Urban Forced Displacement Due To Climate Gentrification In The Greater Miami Area—Community Lawyering For Environmental Justice And Equitable Development, Theresa Pinto, Abigail L. Fleming, Sabrina Payoute, Elissa Klein

University of Miami Law Review

Because Miami-Dade County is “ground zero” for such climate effects as sea-level rise and increasingly hazardous, climate-driven Atlantic hurricanes, the coral rock ridge that runs along the Eastern coast of South Florida is a prime target for redevelopment and “climate” gentrification. Through a community and movement lawyering for environmental justice approach, we partnered with local community organizations to contribute to the ongoing work of community-driven equitable development. In partnership, we developed an environmental public health study to understand and document the public health effects on disadvantaged communities in Miami-Dade County from forced intra-urban displacement due to redevelopment that is being …

Reproductive Justice At Work: Employment Law After Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health Organization, Laura T. Kessler

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In June 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, landmark decisions which held that the U.S. Constitution protected a right to abortion prior to fetal viability. Overnight, about 64 million American women of childbearing age potentially lost the right to decide what happens in their own bodies. In the two years since the decision, seventeen states have made most or all abortions illegal, with the fight over abortion still taking place in state and federal courts. Experts across fields have explored the decision's effects on health, economic …

Education, Employment, And Healthcare: Personal And Societal Strategies For Transitioning Servicemembers' Fiscal Sustainability, Kan Samuel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Emergency Room To The Courtroom: Providing Abortion Care Under Emtala And State Abortion Bans, Natasha Rappazzo

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

After the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, states began to broadly criminalize abortion. Abortion is criminalized and restricted even in situations that constitute an emergency medical condition under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (“EMTALA”). State abortion bans with limited medical exceptions conflict with EMTALA’s protections for emergency screening and stabilization. Legal challenges to the scope of EMTALA show a growing divide and uncertainty on emergency abortion care in the United States. This Comment will discuss why physicians cannot confidently provide quality and competent abortion care without the …

Using The Common Law Of Contracts To Police Abusive Terms In Hospital Admissions Agreements: Balancing Freedom Of Contract With Fairness, George A. Nation Iii

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Standard hospital admissions contracts (“HACs”) often contain provisions that are shockingly unfair, but are easily overlooked or misunderstood by patients. Hospitals rely on the common law of contracts, especially the doctrine of freedom of contract, to claim that these provisions should be enforced. Many courts have accepted the freedom of contract argument and enforced some or all of these provisions.

This Article suggests that courts are in error to enforce these harsh provisions against patients. This Article focuses on four harsh provisions commonly found in HACs. First is the payment provision which is opaque, misleading, and designed to allow hospitals …

The Impact Of Government Sponsored Segregation On Health Inequities: Addressing Death Gaps Through Reparations, Mariya Denisenko

Washington and Lee Law Review

Government sponsored segregation of urban neighborhoods has detrimentally impacted the health of Black Americans. Over the last century, federal, state, and local governments have promulgated racist laws and policies that shaped the racial divide of communities in major metropolitan cities. This divide has contributed to poor health outcomes and large discrepancies in life expectancy for Black Americans when compared to their White counterparts. While health is impacted by various factors, segregation has been shown to impose various challenges that make it difficult for Black Americans to attain good health.

Segregated Black communities struggle with economic inequality, environmental racism, and face …

“A Solemn Mockery”: Why Texas’S Senate Bill 8 Cannot Be Legitimized Through Comparisons To Qui Tam And Environmental Protection Statutes, Laura Blockman

University of Miami Law Review

On September 1, 2021, the Texas Legislature enacted the Texas Heartbeat Act, an anti-abortion statute popularly known as Senate Bill 8 (“S.B. 8”). Although many states passed anti-abortion legislation in 2021, S.B. 8 received national attention due to the law’s unusual enforcement mechanism: S.B. 8 empowers private citizens, not state actors, to sue individuals who perform or aid in the performance of an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected.

Unsurprisingly, the authors of S.B. 8 received extreme back- lash from the public, and many academics and legal scholars viewed the law’s private enforcement mechanism as an effort to evade …

Cosmetic Crisis: The Obsolete Regulatory Framework Of The Ever-Evolving Cosmetic Industry, Isabelle M. Carbajales

University of Miami Law Review

Cosmetics only first became regulated after a series of tragic events where users were seriously harmed from the use of cosmetic products. These tragic events prompted legislators to enact the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act of 1938. Before then, law makers feared that regulating the cosmetic industry would lower the tone of legislation because they considered the cosmetic industry to be inconsequential. At present, the regulatory system in place to protect vulnerable cosmetic consumers is nearly identical to when it was enacted over eighty-six years ago—even though the cosmetic market looks nothing like it did back then. The consumer base …

Healthcare Inequities In The United States And Beyond Are Taking Black Women’S Lives, Alichia Mcintosh

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Black women have been dying at devastating rates due to health complications at the hands of the United States’ healthcare and legal systems. This Note explores these distressing rates and how they compare to White women while analyzing the fatalities and diagnoses among several health complications and diseases. These fatalities persist due to the United States’ history of racism—such as the institution of slavery and over 100 years of Black bodies experiencing Jim Crow laws—and the socioeconomic disadvantages Black women disproportionally face. This Note emphasizes that these disparities continue because the United States has failed to implement treaties—which it is …

Law Library Blog (March 2023): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Human-Centered Design To Address Biases In Artificial Intelligence, Ellen W. Clayton, You Chen, Laurie L. Novak, Shilo Anders, Bradley Malin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce health care disparities and inequities is recognized, but it can also exacerbate these issues if not implemented in an equitable manner. This perspective identifies potential biases in each stage of the AI life cycle, including data collection, annotation, machine learning model development, evaluation, deployment, operationalization, monitoring, and feedback integration. To mitigate these biases, we suggest involving a diverse group of stakeholders, using human-centered AI principles. Human-centered AI can help ensure that AI systems are designed and used in a way that benefits patients and society, which can reduce health disparities and inequities. …

Pemenuhan Hak Atas Kesehatan Bagi Fakir Miskin Saat Pandemi Covid-19 Di Indonesia, Bonita Cinintya Putri

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

Economy and Social Welfare should not be read and understood as two separate concepts separately. Human rights are rights that humans have solely because they are human. Humanity has it not because it was given to it by society or based on positive law, but solely based on its dignity as a human being. The state's obligation to the right to health is stated in Article 34 Paragraph (3) of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia. The state as the holder of the obligation to fulfil human rights has the responsibility to comply with these aspects when talking …

Table Of Contents

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Gender Identity, Health, And The Law: An Overview Of Key Laws Impacting The Health Of Transgender And Gender Non-Conforming People, Naomi Seiler, Amanda Spott, Mekhi Washington, Paige Organick-Lee, Aaron Karacuschansky, Gregory Dwyer, Katie Horton, Alexis Osei

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

A growing population of transgender, nonbinary, and other gender non-conforming Americans experience the burden of multiple physical and mental health inequities. Largely rooted in discrimination and stigma, these disparities are compounded by barriers to respectful, appropriate healthcare.

A range of new policies, including state laws attempting to limit access to gender-affirming care for minors, may further compound health disparities. However, in some states and at the federal level, protective laws seek to prohibit discrimination and support access to care. Meanwhile, the constitutional status of gender identity under the Equal Protection Clause, and the legality of certain federal protections challenged on …

Dobbsmacked By The Dobbs Decision: The Need For More Privacy Protection For Personal Health Information, Morgan Vanden Heuvel

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Jail Health And Early Release Practices, Brandon L. Garrett, Deniz Ariturk, Jessica Carda-Auten, David L. Rosen

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Local jails in the United States incarcerate millions of people each year. The COVID-19 pandemic made jail health a pressing public health concern nationally, where releasing individuals from jails occurred across the country in order to prevent pandemic spread. But releases also faced substantial resistance and exposed long-standing challenges in delivering adequate healthcare in jail settings. People in jail have substantially higher levels of medical need than individuals in the general population, with large numbers having serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Further, overcrowded conditions and poor healthcare standards and delivery make jails harmful to those already-vulnerable people. What …