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Health Law

Health Law Blog

Commentary on anything-- if not quite everything-- happening in the health law field, with emphasis on federal developments but including state developments (especially Texas) plus occasional digressions into family law, administrative law, constitutional law, poetry, and other things that matter.

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Last Entry: December 31, 2010 at 18:28:12

If you want to skip the explanation

Posted on December 31, 2010
If you want to skip the explanation below, just click here for access to the newest version of HealthLawBlog.Long-winded explanation:It's obviously been a while since I posted to this blog. Between directing an ethics center and maintaining a pretty heavy teaching and consulting load, the blog simply took a back seat to more pressing concerns...

Dallas Morning News' excellent series on health care costs (and other things that matter)

Posted on September 27, 2009
Hooray to the Dallas Morning News for its week-long series on health care and the systemic issues that have contributed to the crisis we are now in. Free registration may be required to view all of these articles. . . .Sun., 9/27: High prices, red tape fuel popular Dallas doctor's move to Temple Sun...

Good article in today's NY Times

Posted on March 29, 2009
Good article in today's NY Times comparing the Obama health reform plan to the Massachusetts experience, including a nifty graphic that summarizes the similarities and differences nicely.I think Obama's initial emphasis on cost-control is smart - it's by no means clear that the U...

Dallas Morning News: series on palliative care

Posted on December 18, 2008
This is quite a remarkable series of articles on end-of-life care and in particular palliative care at Baylor University Medical Center. Short of watching the amazing 6-hour documentary by Frederick Wiseman ("Near Death"), this is as close as most of us will get to the true in-hospital experience until it happens to one of us or someone we love...

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WSJ backs incentives for organ donation

Posted on December 17, 2008
I know it will not come as a surprise that the house organ for American capitalism thinks a market for buying and selling human organs would produce a better system than the one we have now (100,000 patients on waiting lists, four times as many as were on lists when the current system was enacted into law in 1984), but maybe -- this time, at least -- they're right...

WSJ (gasp

Posted on December 17, 2008

Vatican issues 3rd major bioethics pronouncement in 21 years

Posted on December 12, 2008
First, it was Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life) in 1987, followed by Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) in 1995. Now the Vatican has given us its third major pronouncement on bioethics in over 2 decades with Dignitas Personae (The Dignity of the Person), released today...

Mission vs. Money: WSJ profiles Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago

Posted on December 12, 2008
Interesting multi-media report in today's on-line WSJ ("Pursuing Charitable Mission Leaves a Hospital Struggling" (may require subscription)) about the financial pressures on nonprofit Mt. Sinai. Here's the video:

Cleveland Clinic addresses financial conflicts of interest head-on

Posted on December 03, 2008
Today's Times has an interesting piece on the Cleveland Clinic's new policy of publicly reporting the business relationships that any of its 1,800 staff doctors and scientists have with drug and device makers. The clinic, one of the nation?s most prominent medical research centers, is making a complete disclosure of doctors? and researchers? financial ties available on its Web site, http://

13-year-old refuses heart transplant

Posted on November 26, 2008
The story of Hannah Jones is provoking some strong reactions -- both positive and negative -- in the U.K. The 13-year-old girl has refused a heart transplant without which her doctors say she has only months to live. Hannah's reasoning: potentially lousy quality of life and the possibility that the anti-rejection medicine will trigger a relapse of the leukemia she's been treated for since she was

Larry Gostin's "Public Health Law" text in new edition

Posted on November 23, 2008
The great just got better. No public-health law library would be complete without Larry Gostin's Public Health Law -- Power, Duty, Restraint. Originally published eight years ago, PHL was always more than simply a good place to start your research: Gostin's opus had depth to match its breadth...

Health insurers agree to drop pre-existing condition exclusion

Posted on November 20, 2008
You read that right. According to an article in today's New York Times, the two big health-insurance industry associations have agreed to enroll all applicants, regardless of pre-existing condition. The catch? They will only do so if Congress requires all citizens to have health insurance...

Washington passes PAS ballot measure

Posted on November 09, 2008
The State of Washington became the second state in the U.S. to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Initiative 1000 passed 58-42, according to the Seattle Post-Intellgencer. The measure looks virtually identical to the Oregon Death With Dignity Act, which was enacted in 1997...

Interesting report from The Commonwealth

Posted on November 03, 2008
Interesting report from The Commonwealth Fund: More than two-thirds of respondents to the latest Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Health Care Opinion Leaders Survey believe the way we pay for health care in the United States must be fundamentally reformed...

Tax-exempt hospitals and "community benefit"

Posted on October 20, 2008
Excellent discusion by John Colombo over at Nonprofit Law Prof Blog, ostensibly about the recent GAO report, Nonprofit Hospitals: Variation in Standards and Guidance Limits Comparison of How Hospitals Meet Community Benefit Requirements (GAO 08-880), but also about current thinking as to whether nonprofit hospitals should be tax-exempt in the first place...

Seton Hall Law Review Symposium

Posted on October 15, 2008
Preparing for a Pharmaceutical Response to Pandemic Influenza: A Seton Hall Law Review Symposium October 23-24, 2008 Seton Hall University School of Law Newark, NJ Co-Sponsored by The Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law and the Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology at Seton Hall University School of Law Newark, New Jersey Seton Hall Law School?s Center for Health and

Pay for the best care, save money

Posted on September 27, 2008
Cary Grant is supposed to have said it's cheaper in the long run to buy the best shoes possible -- they will hold up better, last longer, look better over time than the supposedly less expensive alternative. It turns out that health care may work the same way...

Insurer to pay $225M settlement in Medicaid coverage-denial suit

Posted on August 18, 2008
The Kaiser Network has picked up on a report from Reuters that Amerigroup has settled a qui tam whistleblower suit in which it was accused of denying coverage to Medicaid beneficiaries who were pregnant or had health problems. (Under the law, Amerigroup was obligated to provide coverage for a Medicaid enrollees...

Pediatric DCD in the news

Posted on August 14, 2008
Today The Washington Post has an article -- Infant Transplant Procedure Ignites Debate -- that builds on yesterday's AP article about three cases in which infant hearts were harvested under a "donation after cardiac death" ("DCD") protocol, which all transplant centers are required by UNOS and HHS...

"For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health . . . "

Posted on August 13, 2008
How to pick a life partner, 2008-style: "Let's see. . . . Good personality? Check. Kind to small animals and young children? Check. Reasonably communicative and okay with intimacy? Check. Excellent health care insurance? DOUBLE CHECK!!" That's the message in yesterday's New York Times article, Health Benefits Inspire Rush to Marry, or Divorce...

U.S. health care reform: can 8 out of 10 Americans be wrong?

Posted on August 07, 2008
The latest from The Commonwealth Fund is a report based upon a Harris Interactive survey that sought the opinions of a sample of 1,004 adults about our health care system. Here's a summary of the results: Overall, the telephone survey of a representative sample of 1,004 adults age 18 and older reveals that the health care delivery system does not serve the public well ? eight of 10 respondents

Congresswoman Slams Religious Right's Assault on Science's "Edgier" Side

Posted on August 06, 2008
Scientific American has an on-line interview with Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, who recently published, "Sex, Science and Stem Cells: Inside the Right Wing Assault on Reason" (Congresswoman Slams Religious Right's Assault on Science's "Edgier" Side). Here's their intro: Six-term Democratic Congresswoman Diana DeGette owns a dubious distinction: She is one of the two co-authors of the bill that

New Study Looks at Uninsurance Among Immigrants

Posted on August 06, 2008
New Study Looks at Uninsurance Among Immigrants [from today's Kaisernetwork.org's Daily Health Policy Report] Although U.S.-born residents still make up the majority of uninsured U.S. residents, the percentage of uninsured documented and undocumented immigrants is growing, according to a study released on Tuesday by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, the Kansas City Star reports...

Latest health-related reports from GAO

Posted on August 06, 2008
Electronic Health Records: DOD and VA Have Increased Their Sharing of Health Information, but More Work Remains. GAO-08-954, July 28, 2008 (43 pages). http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/details.php?rptno=GAO-08-954 Emergency Preparedness: States Are Planning for Medical Surge, but Could Benefit from Shared Guidance for Allocating Scarce Medical Resources...

Texas Attorney General: Charitable Hospital Summit

Posted on August 06, 2008
For those interested in charity care and community benefits in Texas, the Texas Attorney General is hosting a "summit" on Tuesday, September 16, in Austin. The schedule looks pretty good, if a little basic, but it's the Attorney General's office, for crying out loud, and they do have enforcement authority for Health and Safety Code chapter 311 (though it would be nice to know whether the speakers

What it means to be uninsured in America

Posted on August 05, 2008
The New York Times has an article (Millions With Chronic Disease Get Little to No Treatment) today about the most recent Annals of Internal Medicine survey (abstract) of just exactly what health care services the uninsured with chronic conditions aren't getting...

All hospitals have to pull their weight on uncompensated care

Posted on July 27, 2008
Tim Walters filed this op-ed piece Saturday in the Cleveland Plain Dealer: All hospitals have to pull their weight on uncompensated care. Seems MetroHealth, the nationally recognized public hospital in town, is in perilous financial condition. It is the largest provider of uncompensated health care in the state of Ohio, and if it goes under, Walters wonders what will happen to indigent patients

5th Circuit's decision in Poliner is out

Posted on July 23, 2008
Total win for Presbyterian/THR/ medical-staff docs. HCQIA immunity for money damages held to apply to emergency suspension decisions during the fact-investigation phase of the peer-review process. Judge Higginbotham's opinion for a unanimous panel is here...

Trying to Save by Increasing Doctors? Fees

Posted on July 21, 2008
Trying to Save by Increasing Doctors? Fees That's the headline in this morning's New York Times' story about health plans (including Medicare) that are going to try to gin up some extra compensation for primary and preventve care in the hope that it will reduce more costly acute care down the road...

Making Malpractice a Criminal Matter

Posted on July 17, 2008
The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog has an entry today on a criminal case brought against a physician at the Harvard School of Public Health. The case is described a little more fully in the Boston Globe. According to the Globe story, the physician -- Dr...