Medical Jurisprudence Commons^™

Access To Medicaid: Recognizing Rights To Ensure Access To Care And Services, Colleen Nicholson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

The Supreme Court has defined Medicaid as “a cooperative federal-state program through which the Federal Government provides financial assistance to States so that they may furnish medical care to needy individuals.” In June 2012, the Court found the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (PPACA) Medicaid expansion unconstitutional. The Court took issue with the threat to withhold all of a state’s Medicaid funding if they did not comply with the expansion, finding it coercive and a fundamental shift in the Medicaid paradigm. However, Medicaid in its current form may not always be effective at providing beneficiaries with timely access to …

Stopping Philadelphia Abortion Provider Kermit Gosnell And Preventing Others Like Him: An Outcome That Both Pro-Choicers And Pro-Lifers Should Support, Samuel W. Calhoun

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

A Road Map Through The Supreme Court's Back Alley, Clarke D. Forsythe, Bradley N. Kehr

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Engaging In Good Faith: Ethics, Archives, And Critical Constitutionalisms, Penelope Pether

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Standards For Health Care Decision-Making: Legal And Practical Considerations, A. Kimberley Dayton

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the guardian’s role in making, or assisting the ward to make, health care decisions, and provides an overview of existing standards and tools that offer guidance in this area. Part II outlines briefly the legal decisions and statutory developments assuring patient autonomy in medical treatment, and shows how these legal texts apply to and structure the guardian’s role as health care decision-maker. Part III examines the range of legal and practical approaches to such matters as decision-making standards, determining the ward’s likely treatment preferences, and resolving conflicts between guardians and health care agents appointed by the ward. …

A Graceful Exit: Redefining Terminal To Expand The Availability Of Physician-Facilitated Suicide, Browne C. Lewis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

For almost ten years, Oregon stood alone as the state that permits terminally ill persons to choose the time and manner of their deaths. Finally, in 2009, Oregon received company when the state of Washington’s physician facilitated suicide statute officially went into effect in March of that year. Supporters of the statutes hailed the enactments as a victory for persons seeking to die with dignity. Persons from groups like Compassion & Choices vowed to seek similar legislation in the remaining states. Representatives from the Washington State Medical Association, hospice groups and hospitals argued that the mandates of the statutes place …

Medical Professional Liability Litigation In West Virginia: Part Ii, Thomas J. Hurney Jr., Jennifer M. Mankins

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Great Divide—A Response To Linda Greenhouse And Reva B. Siegel's "Before (And After) Roe V. Wade: New Questions About Backlash", Lolita Buckner Inniss

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This essay discusses the history of Roe v. Wade as recently addressed by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel. Going beyond their assertions, I suggest that an additional, more encompassing inquiry focuses on what factors are implicated in the politics of abortion and how these factors relate to larger social, political, and cultural conflicts both before and after Roe. By naming party politics and the Catholic Church, Greenhouse and Siegel posit two crucial elements that shaped the abortion debate. I assert, however, that what is not discussed in their Article is the way numerous other factors have figured into the …

Mixed Messages: The Intersection Of Prenatal Genetic Testing And Abortion, Rachel Rebouché, Karen Rothenberg

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article, prepared for the 2011 Wiley A. Branton Symposium at Howard Law School, provides a snapshot of how current law and practice generate mixed messages about prenatal genetic testing and abortion. The ability to screen and to test for genetic conditions prenatally is expanding, not only because of technological innovations but also because of increased legal and financial incentives. At the same time that prenatal genetic testing is expanding, abortion – one option pregnant women have after testing – is contracting. Federal and state legislation restricts abortion services, for example, by reducing or prohibiting funding; banning the types or …

Physicians And Safe Harbor Legal Immunity, Thaddeus Pope

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Sandra Johnson has identified what she calls physician’s “bad law” claims. In some circumstances, physicians perceive that there is significant legal risk in doing what they think is clinically appropriate. In response, physicians sometimes take a medically inappropriate course of action, because it appears safer. For example, physicians might feel intimidated by aggressively enforced drug control laws. In response, they may under-treat patients’ pain to avoid perceived (and real) threats of investigation, discipline, or criminal prosecution. In short, well-meaning laws sometimes have the unintended side-effect of incentivizing physicians to do “bad” things.

Johnson identifies three responses to physicians’ “bad …

Shaken Baby Syndrome, Abusive Head Trauma, And Actual Innocence: Getting It Right, Keith A. Findley, Patrick D. Barnes, David A. Moran, Waney Squier

Articles

In the past decade, the existence of shaken baby syndrome (SBS) has been called into serious question by biomechanical studies, the medical and legal literature, and the media. As a result of these questions, SBS has been renamed abusive head trauma (AHT). This is, however, primarily a terminological shift: like SBS, AHT refers to the two-part hypothesis that one can reliably diagnose shaking or abuse from three internal findings (subdural hemorrhage, retinal hemorrhage, and encephalopathy) and that one can identify the perpetrator based on the onset of symptoms. Over the past decade, we have learned that this hypothesis fits poorly …

The Hollow Promise Of Freedom Of Conscience, Nadia N. Sawicki

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson asserted that no law "ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority." Since then, freedom of conscience has continued to be heralded as a fundamental principle of American society. Indeed, many current policy debates-most notably in the medical and military contexts-are predicated on the theory that claims of conscience are worthy of legal respect. This Article, which offers a comprehensive account of the contemporary treatment of conscience, challenges established assumptions and seeks to reframe the debate about the normative value of …

Patient Protection And Decision Aid Quality: Regulatory And Tort Law Approaches, Nadia N. Sawicki

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

Half Baked: The Federal And State Conflicts Of Legalizing Medical Marijuana, Andrew K. Fevery

CMC Senior Theses

The legalization of medical marijuana has been a complicated and confusing process. The drug is used for medical purposes yet is only semi-legal and not approved by the federal government. This piece will observe the legal medical history of this drug in the United States. It will analyze the growth of the medical marijuana movement up to the present with a special emphasis to the importance of federal, state and local supremacy. It will observe important court cases that have been decisive in defining the reach of federal power under the Commerce Clause and the 1970 Controlled Substance Act. This …

Federal/State Tensions In Fulfilling Medicaid’S Purpose, Laura Hermer

Faculty Scholarship

Medicaid has been subject to reconsiderations of the proper role of government in providing for the health and welfare of populations over recent decades. Over the last decade in particular, a number of states have transferred many functions that they once performed to private entities, including, in a number of cases, express policymaking functions. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) takes some crucial steps towards readjusting the equilibrium of Medicaid. Rather than further prioritizing the market in its reforms, it gives the federal government stronger charge of Medicaid policy, refocusing the program more directly on expanding eligibility and …

Reforming State Mental Health Parity Law, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

This Article is the final installment in a three-part project that presents a comprehensive challenge to lingering legal distinctions between physical and mental illness in the context of health insurance. The first installment in this series narrowly inquired as to whether the postpartum mood disorders should be classified as physical or mental illnesses in a range of health law contexts, including the context of health insurance. The second installment was broader in scope and challenged a number of federal provisions that allow publicly- and privately-funded health care programs and plans to provide mental health insurance benefits that are less comprehensive …

Breaking The Cycle Of “Unequal Treatment” With Health Care Reform: Acknowledging And Addressing The Continuation Of Racial Bias, Ruqaiijah A. Yearby

All Faculty Scholarship

Since the Civil War access to health care in the United States has been racially unequal. This racially unequal access to health care remains even after the passage of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and the election of an African-American President. Both of these events held the promise of equality, yet the promise has never been fulfilled. Now, many hail the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (“ACA”) as the biggest governmental step in equalizing access to health care because it has the potential to increase minority access to health …

Beyond Nuremberg: A Critique Of Informed Consent In Third World Human Subject Research , Jacob Schuman

Journal of Law and Health

This Article discusses the history of informed consent, critically analyzes this principle, and suggests an alternative approach to informed consent. Part II explores the concept of informed consent, including its philosophical bases, its implementation through FDA regulations, and current proposals on how to protect the principle in drug testing conducted abroad. Part III performs a critical analysis of the principle of informed consent; first providing an empirical examination of the realities of Third World human subject research, and then questioning both the coherence of an abstract “right” to informed consent, as well as the possibility of truly autonomous “consent” to …

Barefoot And Pregnant: How The Patient Protection Affordable Care Act Will Leave Young Mothers To Fend For Themselves, Tyler Hanson

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Madness In The Hole: Solitary Confinement And Mental Health Of Prison Inmates, Emily Coffey

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.