Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Intellectual Property And Public Health – A White Paper, Ryan G. Vacca, Jim Chen, Jay Dratler Jr., Tom Folsom, Timothy Hall, Yaniv Heled, Frank Pasquale, Elizabeth Reilly, Jeff Samuels, Kathy Strandburg, Kara Swanson, Andrew Torrance, Katharine Van Tassel

Akron Law Faculty Publications

On October 26, 2012, the University of Akron School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property and Technology hosted its Sixth Annual IP Scholars Forum. In attendance were thirteen legal scholars with expertise and an interest in IP and public health who met to discuss problems and potential solutions at the intersection of these fields. This report summarizes this discussion by describing the problems raised, areas of agreement and disagreement between the participants, suggestions and solutions made by participants and the subsequent evaluations of these suggestions and solutions.

Led by the moderator, participants at the Forum focused generally on three broad …

Lessons From Health Care Fraud Cases: Implications For Management Of Health Care Entities, Haley Onofaro

Honors Projects in Accounting

Fraud has been a major issue all throughout the health care industry. There have been many cases around the world in relation to health care fraud. There are several laws now that do try to reduce the amount of healthcare fraud, but more changes could and should be made to reduce it even more. Four different cases that have occurred within the health care industry have be analyzed in this project. It looks at the positives and negatives of each company’s internal control structure and provides suggestions for how to improve these internal controls to prevent fraud from reoccurring in …

Advocacy In Health Proceedings In New York State, Kia C. Franklin

Touro Law Review

Individuals and communities navigating the healthcare system without an advocate often experience devastating outcomes and become burdened with unnecessary costs. These negative outcomes undermine the very utility of our healthcare system. The creation of a legal right to counsel for individuals with critical health related claims would meet an important and unmet need in our health and legal systems by empowering patients, improving the quality of health for many, and preventing unnecessary costs to the health care system.

A dedicated group of healthcare advocates, lawyers, public policy analysts, and other concerned individuals gathered together at Touro Law Center to strategize …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Spring 2013

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Law & Health Care Newsletter, V. 20, No. 2, Spring 2013

Law & Health Care Newsletter

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of The Role Of The Employer In The French And U.S. Health Care Systems, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The United States is unique among developed nations in its heavy reliance on employment-based health insurance. The United States, however, is not the only nation in which employers play an important role in the financing of health care. Indeed, long before employment-based health insurance became common in the United States, countries with social insurance systems, such as France, Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, provided for the delivery of mandatory social insurance benefits, including health insurance, through the workplace.

This article explores the role of the employer in the health care system in one such country: France. The French health …

When Caring Is Work: Home, Health, And The Invisible Workforce: Introduction, Dianne Avery, Martha T. Mccluskey

Buffalo Law Review

This essay introduces the SUNY Buffalo Law School 2012 James McCormick Mitchell Lecture. The Lecture featured distinguished scholars Hendrik Hartog, Jennifer Klein, and Peggie R. Smith, who each contributed an essay to this volume. These three scholars give a richly detailed picture of home caretakers' struggles to gain visibility and support for their important work. Legal rulings and policy choices have made care workers distinctly vulnerable, treating care services as an expression of love rather than contract (as Hartog describes), or as social rehabilitation for marginal citizens rather than as skilled health care provision (as Klein explains), or as informal …

The Independent Medicare Advisory Committee: Death Panel Or Smart Governing?, Robert Coleman

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Winter 2013

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Health Care Decision Making In The Veterans Health Administration: The Legal Significance For Informed Consent And Advance Directives, Liliana Kalogjera Barry

Marquette Elder's Advisor

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property And Public Health – A White Paper, Ryan G. Vacca, James Ming Chen, Jay Dratler Jr., Thomas Folsom, Timothy S. Hall, Yaniv Heled, Frank A. Pasquale Iii, Elizabeth A. Reilly, Jeffrey Samuels, Katherine J. Strandburg, Kara W. Swanson, Andrew W. Torrance, Katharine A. Van Tassel

Law Faculty Scholarship

On October 26, 2012, the University of Akron School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property and Technology hosted its Sixth Annual IP Scholars Forum. In attendance were thirteen legal scholars with expertise and an interest in IP and public health who met to discuss problems and potential solutions at the intersection of these fields. This report summarizes this discussion by describing the problems raised, areas of agreement and disagreement between the participants, suggestions and solutions made by participants and the subsequent evaluations of these suggestions and solutions. Led by the moderator, participants at the Forum focused generally on three broad …

Mapping Our Future: The Impact Of Gene Patents On Scientific Research And Health Care In The United States, Caitlin E. Lanning

Journal of Law and Health

In September, 2011, the Senate passed H.R. 1249, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”), which President Barrack Obama signed into law on September 16th. The AIA is the largest transformation to U.S. patent law since 1952. While the new legislation implements numerous, positive changes to the U.S. patent system, it fails to address any of the concerns raised by gene patent critics over the past few decades. Gene patents should be categorized as patentable subject matter within the AIA, but under a separate patent category with specifically engineered regulations designed to promote scientific research and collaboration that will in turn …

Taxation Without Representation: The Illegal Irs Rule To Expand Tax Credits Under The Ppaca, Jonathan H. Adler, Michael F. Cannon

Faculty Publications

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) provides tax credits and subsidies for the purchase of qualifying health insurance plans on state-run insurance exchanges. Contrary to expectations, many states are refusing or otherwise failing to create such exchanges. An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rule purports to extend these tax credits and subsidies to the purchase of health insurance in federal exchanges created in states without exchanges of their own. This rule lacks statutory authority. The text, structure, and history of the Act show that tax credits and subsidies are not available in federally run exchanges. The IRS rule is …

Conflicts Of Interest In Medicine, Research, And Law: A Comparison, Stacey A. Tovino

Scholarly Works

Several of the remarks and articles presented in this symposium have addressed conflicts of interest arising during the provision of legal counsel to individuals who are elderly, including specific conflicts of interest implicated by estate planning, retirement planning, and long-term care planning. Topics examined thus far include conflicts of interest with respect to the application of rules of confidentiality within state rules of professional conduct to elderly clients with impaired decision-making capacity; conflicts of interest involving representative payees for Social Security benefits; conflicts of interest in distributions when parents enter into marriages that are unprotected by law; and conflicts of …

The Individual Mandate's Due Process Legality: A Kantian Explanation, And Why It Matters, Peter Brandon Bayer

Scholarly Works

In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, one of the most controversial decisions of this young century, an intensely divided Supreme Court upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's most provocative feature-the Individual Mandate-under Congress's taxing power. In so doing, the Court rejected what appeared to be the Individual Mandate's more applicable constitutional premise-Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce. Yet, neither the Constitution's Taxing Clause nor its Commerce Clause provide the ultimate answer as to whether Congress may regulate the multi-billion dollar healthcare market by compelling unwilling persons to buy private health insurance. The final determination of the …

Taxing The Platypygous, James J. White

Articles

This Article maintains that obesity in the United States is an enormous public health issue that causes the health care costs of the obese Americans greatly to exceed those of citizens of normal weight. Recognizing that that much of that cost will be born by publicly financed programs and that the taxes supporting those programs will constitute an externality that the fat impose on the thin, the Article proposes a tax on high calorie food-but only when that food is purchased by the obese. The Article addresses many of the administrative, moral and other objections to a tax aimed at …

An Insurance Structure To Encourage Investment In Preventative Health Care, Nicholas Georgakopoulos

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The incentives for investments in Americans' health are poorly aligned. Health insurers are not sufficiently motivated to invest for the long term. The structure of health insurance does not compensate insurers for investments in lasting health, such as measures preventing chronic disease. If an American changes insurers, the new insurer reaps the benefits of the good health the prior insurer's investment produced. This Essay explores insurers' incentives to invest in health, illustrates how those incentives fail, explores possible improvements, and shows that subsequent insurers should have an obligation to compensate the prior insurer for the averted expenses of expected diseases …

Employers United: An Empirical Analysis Of Corporate Political Speech In The Wake Of The Affordable Care Act, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, Susan Scholz, Raquel Meyer Alexander

Scholarly Works

Is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) bad for business? Did the countries' most prominent companies game the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure process to make negative political statements about ObamaCare? Immediately following the ACA's enactment on March 23, 2010, a number of companies drew scrutiny for issuing SEC filings writing off millions – and in AT&T's case, one billion dollars – against expected earnings for 2010 alone, based on a single, discrete tax-law change in the ACA. Congressional and Administration officials accused the firms of being "irresponsible" and using "big numbers to exaggerate the health reform's …

Can Consumers Control Health-Care Costs?, Mark A. Hall, Carl E. Schneider

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 …

Satmed: Legal Aspects Of The Physical Layer Of Satellite Telemedicine, Stephen Rooke

Michigan Journal of International Law

In 2003, Paul Hunt, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, presented a report on the global availability of health care. Special Rapporteur Hunt argued that states are obligated to implement a right to health. Included in this right is the obligation "to ensure that no international agreement or policy adversely impacts upon the right to health, and that .. . international organizations take due account of the right to health, as well as the obligation of international assistance and cooperation, in all policy-making matters." One area Hunt left unexplored in his report was …

The Disappearing Provision: Medical Liability Reform Vanishes From The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act Despite State Court Split, Rafael Andre Roberti

Legislation and Policy Brief

The legal and medical communities have debated the impact and necessity of medical liability reform for over twenty years. At the heart of the debate is the question of how to strike a balance between compensating patients and their families for the thousands of deaths and injuries resulting from medical errors that occur annually, and encouraging physicians to continue to care for patients across America. While several states have passed medical liability reform laws previously, on March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)—colloquially known as the “health care bill”—that contains provisions on medical …

An O’Neill Institute Briefing Paper: The Supreme Court’S Landmark Decision On The Affordable Care Act: Healthcare Reform’S Ultimate Fate Remains Uncertain, Emily W. Parento, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

The Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a landmark on the path toward ensuring universal access to health care in the United States. In a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court upheld the law in its entirety with the sole exception that Congress may not revoke existing state Medicaid funding to penalize states that decline to participate in the Medicaid expansion under the ACA. In this O’Neill Institute Briefing, we explain and analyze the Court’s decision, focusing on the individual purchase mandate and the Medicaid expansion, while …

Family Caregiving And The Law Of Succession: A Proposal, Thomas P. Gallanis, Josephine Gittler

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As the American population ages, the need for long-term care, already great, will become even greater. Some of this care is paid for by government programs, such as Medicaid, and by individual long-term care insurance policies. But the combination of the public fisc and private insurance are, and will continue to be, insufficient to pay for all of the care our seniors and adults with disabilities need. The provision of care in a family residence by one or more family members is an important component of our health care delivery system and must be supported and encouraged by public policy …

Medical Malpractice Arbitration In The New Millennium: Much Ado About Nothing ?, Ann H. Nevers

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This paper reviews the constitutional issues surrounding medical malpractice arbitration clauses and the implementation of arbitration contracts, and the existing medical malpractice process. Federal preemption issues under the Federal Arbitration Act, enterprise liability and ERISA preemption, and cybermalpractice will be discussed. Finally, dispute resolution industry standards implemented by the American Arbitration Association and American Health Lawyers Association will be reviewed as well as current medical malpractice mediation practices in industry. While the past has shown that arbitration has not been used a great deal future trends may increase use. Emerging medical malpractice arbitration issues arising in the new millennium include …

The Future Of Adr, Edward A. Dauer

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article addresses the use of alternative dispute resolution in health care.The article provides a historical analysis of medical malpractice and traces the development of ADR in healthcare. The article discusses the benefits that ADR can and will bring to health care in the future.

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Spring 2012

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

When Coercion Lacks Care: Competency To Make Medical Treatment Decisions And Parens Patriae Civil Commitments, Dora W. Klein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The subject of this Article is people who have been civilly committed under a state's parens patriae authority to care for those who are unable to care for themselves. These are people who, because of a mental illness, are a danger to themselves. Even after they have been determined to be so disabled by their mental illness that they cannot care for themselves, many are nonetheless found to be competent to refuse medical treatment. Competency to make medical treatment decisions generally requires only a capacity to understand a proposed treatment, not an actual or rational understanding of that treatment. This …

Healthcare Reform Hangs In The Balance, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

In this timely new briefing, Professor Lawrence O. Gostin, University Professor and Faculty Director, O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University writes:

Prior to Tuesday’s arguments, I believed that the Supreme Court would uphold the health insurance purchase mandate by a comfortable margin. But now I believe that health care reform hangs in the balance. Here are the key arguments on which the future of President Obama’s health care reform depends: a greater freedom, cost-shifting, the health care market, acts versus omissions, limiting principles, the population-base approach, and what is necessary and proper. If the Court strikes …

Why The Affordable Care Act's Individual Purchase Mandate Is Both Constitutional And Indispensable To The Public Welfare, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

Integral to the Affordable Care Act's (ACA’s) conceptual design is the individual purchase mandate, which requires most individuals to pay an annual tax penalty if they do not have health insurance by 2014. Despite the vociferous opposition, the mandate is the most “market-friendly” financing device because it relies on the private sector. Ironically, less market-oriented reforms such as a single-payer system clearly would have been constitutional.

It is common sense for everyone to purchase health insurance and thus gain security against the potentially catastrophic costs of treating a serious illness or injury. However, Congress’ method of ensuring that everyone has …

Mediation In The Health Care System: Creative Problem Solving , Sheea Sybblis

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Part I of this paper provides a comparison of the use of litigation and mediation in the health care context. Part II explores how mediation can be used to improve many of the often criticized aspects of adjudication systems and alleviate tension between parties in health care disputes. Part III provides an evaluation of current mediation programs and studies in health care, as well as the expanding role of mediators. Part IV incorporates assessments of the potential success of mediation to resolve health care disputes in the future and provides suggestions to strengthen the process.