Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Genes 101: Are Human Genes Patentable Subject Matter?, Andrew Bowman

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Genes are the fundamental building blocks of all living things. They dictate hair color, eye color, even susceptibility to cancer. As such, genes inherently possess untold power. The ability of a sole company to wield this omnipotence makes a human gene patent highly sought after.

Obligatory Health, Noa Ben-Asher

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court will soon rule on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed in March 2010. Courts thus far are divided on the question whether Congress had authority under the Commerce Clause to impose the Act's "Individual Mandate" to purchase health insurance. At this moment, the public and legal debate can benefit from a clearer understanding of the underlying rights claims. This Article offers two principal contributions. First, the Article argues that, while the constitutional question technically turns on the interpretation of congressional power under the Commerce Clause, underlying these debates is a tension between …

The Corporate Profit Motive & Questionable Public Relations Practices During The Lead-Up To The Affordable Care Act , John N. Maher

Journal of Law and Health

The purpose of this Article is two-fold: first, to highlight two problems which threaten the effectiveness of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (Affordable Care Act), and second, to invite civic and governmental dialogue to implement solutions to those problems. The Affordable Care Act is tailored to build upon what is good about the existing health care financing system in the United States. It is also calculated to maximize access to quality and affordable health care across the Nation. There remains, however, work that must be done to neutralize risks to the foundational requirements of consistency and …

Time To Cut The Fat: The Case For Government Anti-Obesity Legislation , Stephen A. Mcguinness

Journal of Law and Health

This Article examines—and ultimately rejects—this anti-paternalism argument against government anti-obesity policies. It argues that government intervention in the food industry for the purpose of stemming the American obesity epidemic is justified and survives paternalistic objections to the contrary. This Article begins by briefly outlining the nature, severity, and causes of the obesity epidemic. It considers what can be done about the problem, finding that only government intervention is capable of effectively combating the crisis. It also outlines several types of potentially successful government anti-obesity strategies. Finally, it considers the primary topic of this Article: whether government anti-obesity policies constitute unjustified …

Tax Policy And The Obesity Epidemic, Merav W. Efrat, Rafael Efrat

Journal of Law and Health

This Article begins with a brief summary of the growing obesity epidemic in the U.S. It then explores some of the central contributing factors to the mounting obesity problem among U.S. children and adults. It also examines the adverse impact and costs associated with the obesity problem. Next, this Article discusses the justification for government intervention, as well as the benefits and disadvantages of using the tax system as a way of shaping consumption and physical activity patterns. It then summarizes recent efforts by various levels of government in the U.S. to use the tax system to affect eating and …

A Commentary: Presidents Adams And Jefferson, With A Few Others, Discuss Health Reform With A Disabled Lawyer, Gary C. Norman

Journal of Law and Health

Washington lawyers constitute strategic actors within executive, legislative, and judicial forums. This Article discusses the interaction of Washington lawyers in these branches of government regarding healthcare law and policy. The Article discusses how access to technology inhibits a disabled lawyer from equal involvement in the governmental process. The Article also thematically presents the position Presidents Adam and Jefferson would likely harbor on healthcare reform. Public discourse must be more intellectual like that of the founding generation, and it should be improved in its civility.

"The Life Of The Flesh Is In The Blood": State Storage And Usage Of Baby's Blood Sample, Jaclyn S. D'Arminio

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note highlights the ethical, legal, and policy challenges surrounding Newborn Screening (NBS) programs, particularly the storage and use of newborn bloodspots. It argues that while these programs provide crucial health benefits, the lack of informed consent regarding the retention and use of bloodspots raises significant privacy concerns. The central argument is that balancing public health benefits with individual privacy rights requires robust informed consent frameworks to maintain trust and ensure scientific progress.

Internet Advertising After Sorrell V. Ims Health: A Discussion On Data Privacy & The First Amendment, Agatha M. Cole

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Pereira's Attack On Legalizing Euthanasia Or Assisted Suicide: Smoke And Mirrors, Jocelyn Downie, Kenneth Chambaere, Jan L. Bernheim

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In a paper published in Current Oncology, University of Ottawa palliative care physician Jose Pereira states that the, “laws and safeguards [in countries in which euthanasia or assisted suicide have been legalized] are regularly ignored and transgressed in all the jurisdictions, and that transgressions are not prosecuted.” He purports to demonstrate that the safeguards and controls put in place in the permissive jurisdictions are an “illusion.”

In the present paper, we expose problems with the evidence base provided and relied upon by Pereira. It should be noted that we provide only examples of each of the categories of mistakes made …

"Sell's" Conundrums: The Right Of Incompetent Defendants To Refuse Anti-Psychotic Medication, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Sell v. United States declared that situations in which the state is authorized to forcibly medicate a criminal defendant to restore competency to stand trial "may be rare." Experience since Sell indicates that this prediction was wrong. In fact, wittingly or not, Sell created three exceptions to its holding (the dangerousness, treatment incompetency, and serious crime exceptions) that virtually swallow the right to refuse. Using the still-on-going case of Jared Loughner as an illustration, this essay explores the scope of these exceptions and the dispositions available in those rare circumstances when none of them …

An Investigation Of The Rationality Of Consumer Valuations Of Multiple Health Risks, W. Kip Viscusi, Wesley A. Magat, Joel Huber

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

After developing a conceptual analysis of consumer valuation of multiple risks, we explore both economic and cognitive hypotheses regarding individual risk-taking. Using a sample of over 1,500 consumers, our study ascertains risk-dollar tradeoffs for the risks associated with using an insecticide and a toilet bowl cleaner. We observe the expected positive valuation of risk reductions andfind empirical supportfor a diminishing in the valuation of risk reduction as the extent of the risk reduction increases. We also find evidence of certainty premiums for the total elimination of one risk, but no strong evidence of additional certainty premiums for the elimination of …

Genealogies Of Risk: Searching For Safety, 1930s-1970s, William Boyd

Publications

Health, safety, and environmental regulation in the United States are saturated with risk thinking. It was not always so, and it may not be so in the future. But today, the formal, quantitative approach to risk provides much of the basis for regulation in these fields, a development that seems quite natural, even necessary. This particular approach, while it drew on conceptual and technical developments that had been underway for decades, achieved prominence during a relatively short timeframe; roughly, between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s--a time of hard looks and regulatory reform. Prior to this time, formal conceptions of …

Cost-Benefit Federalism: Reconciling Collective Action Federalism And Libertarian Federalism In The Obamacare Litigation And Beyond, Abigail Moncrieff

Faculty Scholarship

The lawsuits challenging Obamacare's individual mandate have exposed a rift in federalism theory. On one side of the divide is a view that the national government ought to intervene - and ought to be constitutionally permitted to intervene - whenever the states are "separately incompetent" to regulate. This is the view that Robert Cooter and Neil Siegel recently theorized as "collective action federalism." On the other side of the divide is a view that federalism exists for reasons other than efficiency of regulation and particularly that the Founders created the federal structure for the protection of individual liberty. According to …

Health Cover(Age)Ing, Becca Rausch

Faculty Articles

This article posits that the emerging employer-imposed health insurance fat tax regime subverts the public policy goal of achieving actual health and evidences two important systemic phenomena: first, that these fat taxes force fat people to cover their fatness, and second, that current legal structure permitting this practice ensures that society continues to cover up its anti-fat bias. American society, through the health care system and other mechanisms, has created a fat-thin dichotomy within which thin is good and fat is bad. Recently, employers began reinforcing this dichotomy by imposing on employees whose weight renders them “obese” on the Body …

At Risk Patients And Doctors: Why Increased Agency Enforcement And Private Causes Of Action Under The Supremacy Clause Are Needed To Protect Medicaid Providers And Beneficiaries, Steven Clark

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Health Care Reform, Wellness Programs And The Erosion Of Informed Consent, Matt Lamkin

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

"A Matter Of Grace": Alternatives To Billing Insurance For Sexual Assault Forensic Examinations, Jessica C. Harvey

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Affordable Care Act Litigation: The Standing Paradox, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

Scholarly Works

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) litigation presents a standing paradox. In the current posture, it appears that states lack standing to challenge the federal law on behalf of individuals, while individuals possess standing to challenge the federal law on behalf of states. This Article contends that there is no principled reason for this asymmetry and argues that standing doctrine should apply as liberally to states as individuals, assuming states allege the constitutional minimum requirements for standing and especially where the legal challenge turns on allocation of power between the federal government and states. The Article proceeds by …

The Rhetoric Hits The Road: State Resistance To Affordable Care Act Implementation, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

Scholarly Works

This paper provides an update and reanalysis of my previously published article, Rhetorical Federalism: The Value of State-Based Dissent to Federal Health Reform, 93 Hofstra Law Review 111 (2010). In Rhetorical Federalism, I made an affirmative case for the widespread trend of state resistance to the then-recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA). Before and immediately after ACA’s enactment, a significant number of states engaged in various forms of objection to the new federal Act, including but not limited to lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the individual insurance mandate. My article focused on five targets of …

An Essay On Originalism And The 'Individual Mandate': Rounding Out The Government’S Case For Constitutionality, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court now has under advisement the landmark federal health care law case. Much attention has focused on the law’s minimum coverage provision—or so-called “individual mandate” — and, in particular, its constitutionality under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. In a separate and much lengthier article, I offer two main observations about the arguments made to the Court on that issue. First, I show that the challengers of the minimum coverage provision emphasized originalist reasoning in their briefs and oral arguments, while the federal government did not. Second, I explain why — contrary to the impression …