News, Resources, and Events Tagged "Health Care Reform"
Stamping Out the Medicaid Coverage Gap: An ACA Imperative
In one of its most striking features, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded Medicaid eligibility for nearly all U.S. citizens and legal resident adults between the…
Covid-19 pandemic isn’t over for Black Americans, report warns
Asearing report released Tuesday by the Black Coalition Against COVID details the immense toll the Covid-19 pandemic has taken — and continues to take — on Black communities,…
Ecosystem effectuation: creating new value through open innovation during a pandemic
The severity of the COVID-19 pandemic confronts us with a global grand challenge representing an unprecedented crisis for health, economies, and societies. While digital champions are thriving, a large number…
The Affordable Care Act Resurrected Curtailing the Ranks of the Uninsured
On June 17, 2021, in California v Texas, a majority of the US Supreme Court rejected the latest challenge to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on the grounds that…
Inside the Battle for Drug Pricing Reform
Against a backdrop of heightened attention triggered by the FDA’s controversial approval of a new $56,000-a-year Alzheimer’s drug, the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis…
The Alchemy of Agency: Reflections on Supported Decision-Making, Health Systems and the Right to Health
Since adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the interpretive General Comment 1, the topic of legal capacity in mental health settings has generated considerable debate…
With painstaking effort, Black doctors’ group takes aim at Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy
In September, after the Food and Drug Administration authorized Covid-19 treatments based more on presidential puffery than on clinical data, some physicians decided to take matters into their own hands. …
Video available now! Public Options for Employers: A Panel Discussion
Check out the conversation on Twitter @PetrieFlom using #PublicOptions. Watch fully captioned video of the event. Event Description The American health care system struggles to meet the needs of all…
Democratizing Health Systems to Advance Health Justice
The staggeringly disproportionate ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic among people of color, juxtaposed with the summer’s wave of protest against police violence against Black people in the United…
Trump leaves behind largely unworkable drug-pricing policies
Between legal challenges and practical implementation problems, President Trump isn’t leaving much policy for the Biden team to work with. But he did shift the drug-policy conversation.
Purdue’s Demise Could Be A New Beginning For The Pharmaceutical Industry
North America’s overdose crisis remains a public health emergency, even as the COVID-19 pandemic has overtaken its grim death toll. The initial drivers of this crisis involved a…
JAMA Research Letter Finds the Share of Physicians Receiving Industry Payments Decreases
A recent research letter published in JAMA stated that since the 2014 launch of the Open Payments database, the share of physicians who received industry payments has decreased but the total…
Video now available! Nudging Organ Donation: Tools to Encourage Organ Availability
Online Viewing Couldn't join the webinar? Check out the conversation @PetrieFlom using #NudgingDonation. Watch fully captioned video of the event. Learn more about the issues! Check out these…
D.C. voters to weigh in on ‘magic mushroom’ decriminalization after months-long campaign
Initiative 81, also known as the Entheogenic Plant and Fungus Policy Act of 2020, made the ballot after months of wrangling over its legality and a nationwide debate about policing and the…
Video now available! Understanding the Role of Race in Health: A Moderated Discussion
Online Viewing Couldn't join the webinar? Check out the conversation @PetrieFlom using #RaceandHealth. Watch fully captioned video of the event! Event Description Structural racism pervades all facets of society,…
Explaining California v. Texas: A Guide to the Case Challenging the ACA
The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) future continues to be uncertain as the law’s constitutionality will once again be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court in…
Democracy and Health: Situating Health Rights within a Republic of Reasons
Patterns of population health are keen reflections of structural inequities in societies, yet they are rarely subject to the requirements of democratic justification that other systemic inequalities provoke. Nor are…
An employer-focused public option offers Biden a path forward on health care
Heading into next month’s virtual convention, Joe Biden must unite the Democratic Party on the issue of health care reform. Toward this goal, Biden’s Unity Task…
Implications for Telehealth in a Postpandemic Future: Regulatory and Privacy Issues
From the article: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has required health care systems to radically and rapidly rethink the delivery of care. One of the most remarkable ongoing changes has…
Stakes High For Democrats And Republicans In Bid To Rush ACA To Supreme Court
[...] The stakes could not be higher. Republicans, who originally rode their spirited criticism of President Barack Obama's signature health law to take control of Congress, suffered serious election defeats…
The Health 202: Obamacare is turning 10. But its cheerleaders are focused on the problems it didn't fix.
From the article: Christopher Robertson, a health law expert at the University of Arizona, told me he’d give the ACA “a solid B” because of its…
Judges Rule Individual Mandate Is Unconstitutional, But Kick Case Back To Lower Court For Review Of Severability
KHN Morning Briefing: Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations In a long-awaited decision, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans agreed with Judge…
Some Big Health Care Policy Changes Are Hiding In The Federal Spending Package
Congress is set to pass a $1.4 trillion spending package this week, which President Trump has said he'll sign. The legislation includes policy changes and funding increases that public health…
Challenges in Implementing Brazil’s Universal Health Care
From the article: Universal health coverage is a goal of many democracies, but achieving that goal requires implementing extensive reforms to existing health systems and making significant investments in public…
ACA Insurers In The Supreme Court: Why Consumers Should Pay Attention
More than $12 billion is at stake for the nation's health insurers Tuesday when the Supreme Court hears a case involving the Affordable Care Act. For the federal government, the…
Eighth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review
At the Petrie-Flom Center's eighth annual Health Law Year in P/Review, leading experts discussed major developments in health law and policy during 2019 and what to watch out for…
Is A Single Payer Health Care System Politically Feasible For The U.S.?
Even among those who agree that a single payer health care system in this country would be more efficient and cost effective, there's another debate. Is it politically feasible? …
White House Budget Office Vets Rule to Permit Importation of Foreign Drugs
From the article: Rachel Sachs, an associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, said HHS faces a number of roadblocks in implementing drug importation and any proposals…
Vitals
From the article: A second method, referred to as "Section 1498," applies to every patent regardless of funding. It's been used in the past, but not recently for prescription drugs. …
Health Law Workshop: Nicholas Bagley: The ACA and Executive Power, Ten Years In
Presentation Topic: "The ACA and Executive Power, Ten Years In" The readings for this presentation are not available for download. About the Presenter Nicholas Bagley is Professor of Law at…
Trump administration plans to delay any changes if the ACA loses in court
If a federal appeals court invalidates the Affordable Care Act in the coming weeks, the Trump administration, which has consistently tried to overturn the law, might be expected to celebrate.…
If We Cannot Live With The Individual Mandate, Can We Cover Enough Lives Without It?
From the article: On Monday, AEI welcomed Wendy Netter Epstein of DePaul University to discuss her forthcoming paper “Private law alternatives to the individual mandate.” Ms. Epstein provided…
Colorado’s plan to import prescription medicines could be in trouble
From the article: The state is still about a year away from a self-imposed deadline to submit its plan to the federal government for approval. And, even if Colorado were…
To Save Money, American Patients And Surgeons Meet In Cancun
From the article: I. Glenn Cohen, a law professor at Harvard and an expert on medical tourism, called the model used by NASH and a few other similar operations a …
A Mexican Hospital, an American Surgeon, and a $5,000 Check (Yes, a Check)
From the article: I. Glenn Cohen, a law professor at Harvard and an expert on medical tourism, called the model used by NASH and a few other similar operations a …
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris muddle through confusing health policy in debate
From the article: Allison Hoffman, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, said, “There…
Kamala Harris’s plan to reduce prescription drug costs, explained
From the article: Harris is one of several Democratic presidential candidates to unveil a proposal that targets the growing costs of prescription drugs. Sen. Bernie Sanders’s bill would…
Medicare for All as a Democratic Movement
From the article: Medicare for All (MFA) has become the symbol of a larger, brewing movement that is attempting to bring major change to how we pay for and regulate…
Call for Papers: The Politics of Health 2020: International Health Humanities Consortium Conference, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
From the description: The sixth annual Health Humanities Consortium (HHC) conference will explore the politics of health and healthcare in the context of world events and a vital 2020…
Sound, Fury and Prescription Drugs
From the article: Nothing typifies the failures of health care in the United States like prescription drugs. Americans pay more for their medications — including those developed in America, with…
The latest legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, explained
From the article: Were the Court to hear the case, this will be the third time it will be asked to determine the legality of the ACA — something it…
A Question of Prevention: I. Glenn Cohen on a procedure to avoid passing on genetic mutations, and the push to legalize it
From the article: Calls are growing for the U.S. to lift a ban on mitochondrial replacement therapy, or MRT, a procedure developed to enable women who are at risk…
Medical crowdfunding supports the wealthy and endangers privacy: Here’s how to make it more ethical
From the article: Medical crowdfunding is a fast-growing practice in which online platforms are used to raise money for health-related needs. GoFundMe.com, the largest platform for medical crowdfunding, has…
Defining and Establishing Goals for Medicare for All
From the article: It is increasingly difficult to find a Democratic presidential hopeful who has not paid at least some lip service to “Medicare for all.” Indeed, ignoring…
The Future of Medicaid’s Health Care Safety Net: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium
Description Medicaid is a federal- and state-subsidized health insurance program that covers about 75 million lower income people and is one of the largest payers for health care in the United…
Why Donald Trump needs Obamacare
From the article: President Donald Trump wants to kill Obamacare, but it will be a lot harder for him to fulfill his own health care promises without the landmark health…
The drug pricing debate is stuck in the past
From the article: There’s a scientific and economic revolution happening in medicine, and the political debate over drug prices isn’t keeping up. Not only are policymakers…
The Future of Health Care?: Medicaid Buy-In and State Trailblazing in Health Care
Learn more about the "State Medicaid Buy-In Tracker" map here. Description States can be laboratories of health reform. States like Massachusetts and Oregon expanded coverage during previous periods of federal…
Watch: “Driving Value in the U.S. Healthcare System”
Academic Fellow alumnus Christopher T. Robertson presented at the Health Law Symposium at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Click here to watch his talk, "Driving Value in the U…
Health as a Human Right, Medicare for All, and the Evolution of the American Health Care Debate
From the article: The United States famously does not have an explicit federal constitutional right to health. By contract, the “enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health”…
Seventh Annual Health Law Year in P/Review
Description At the Seventh Annual Health Law Year in P/Review symposium, leading experts discussed major developments during 2018 and what to watch out for in 2019. Speakers covered hot topics including…
Trump prescription medication plan drawing skepticism
From the article: Part of the proposal includes adopting an international pricing index for reimbursement that is based off the cost of certain drugs in other countries. This would lower…
Health Law Workshop: Christina S. Ho
Presentation Download the Presentation: "Health Impact Assessment: A Negative Right to Health" About the Presenter Professor Christina S. Ho is Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School. She joined the…
Health Law Workshop: Zack Buck
Presentation Download the Presentation: "The Price of Universality: Sustainable Access and the Twilight of the ACA" About the Presenter Zack Buck specializes in health law, and his scholarship examines governmental…
Are Fraud and Abuse Laws Stifling Value-Based Care?
From the article: While health care delivery and financing should not be a free-for-all, designing the exemptions to explicitly conform to specific regulatory programs does not best serve the system.…
Delinking Reimbursement
Introduction: Recently, scholars and policymakers on both sides of the aisle have become interested in the legal and regulatory structures surrounding pharmaceutical approval and reimbursement in this country. Scholars focusing…
Unpacking the bold — and the bluster — in Trump’s plan to bring down drug prices
From the article: The administration says the proposal will save Medicare money, which could translate into lower premiums. It will also mean lower co-pays for any beneficiary who might need…
The Trump administration finally has one good idea to lower drug prices
From the article: Right now, in the above circumstances and when there isn’t an actual drug shortage, “we don’t have a good policy solution,”…
The Health 202: ‘ACA’ removed from swaths of Medicaid.gov website, watchdog reports
From the article: As The Post’s Damian Paletta also noted, the announcement was an example of Trump’s successful use of the presidential bully pulpit. “This…
Pro-ACA group: Court pick Kavanaugh refused to uphold pre-existing condition ban
From the article: For the makers of the ad, this is very simple. "Two judges upheld the Affordable Care Act and its patient protections, and he declined to uphold it,"…
Fox News pundit says Brett Kavanaugh is pro-Obamacare. Is he?
From the article: In the 2011 case, Blumstein said Kavanaugh showed "a traditional norm of judicial restraint." Mark Hall at Wake Forest University echoed that point. He sees Kavanaugh’s…
CMS quit test of pricey cancer treatment amid concerns over industry role
From the article: “Coming from an administration which has a stated goal of trying to reduce drug pricing, trying to reduce overall drug spending and health care spending ……
Putting Patients at the Center of Research: Opportunities and Challenges for Ethical and Regulatory Oversight
Description Efforts to place the patient at the center of medical research, spurred by the Affordable Care Act’s founding of the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, have begun…
Trump unveils plan to cut drug prices
From the article: A trade association that represents PBMs disagrees. Eliminating rebates would leave patients and insurers “at the mercy of drug manufacturer pricing strategies”, according to a…
Is Trump giving the EU higher drug prices too?
From the article: Through single-payer health care systems the EU is able to regulate consumer costs at reasonable levels. It also makes decisions about what new drugs are worth spending…
Trump Wants Medicaid to Push for Lower Drug Prices – But Will Patients Be Hurt?
From the article: While 74 percent of closed formularies result in lower prices, 21 percent result in price increases, a 2016 report in the American Journal of Managed Care found. And 29 percent of…
Work Requirements Give Republicans Cover to Expand Medicaid
From the article: While the Medicaid law sets certain mandatory minimums of eligibility and coverage, the waiver program allows states wide latitude to run their programs as they see fit.…
HealthAffairs Podcast: Precision Medicine
Overview of the Podcast: The May 2018 issue of Health Affairs on "Precision Medicine," contains a timely and comprehensive look at the use of data and genetic information to better diagnose…
Redesigning Provider Payments to Reduce Long-Term Costs by Promoting Healthy Development
From the article: Cognitive, aff ective, and behavioral health (CAB) conditions are among the costliest and fastest growing in the United States. An array of interventions is demonstrated to be…
Massachusetts Wants To Drive Down Medicaid Drug Costs: Why Is The Administration So Nervous?
From the article: Although drug formularies are ubiquitous in Medicare and the private insurance market, they’re absent in Medicaid. By law, state Medicaid programs that offer prescription drug…
Utah’s quixotic Medicaid expansion plan, explained
From the article: Utah wants to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Kind of. The state legislature has passed and Gov. Gary Herbert has signed a bill that would…
Video Now Available! Health in the Headlines: Reporting on Health Policy in the Trump Era
Couldn't join us in person? Check out the conversation online!: #HealthintheHeadlines @HarvardCHLPI @PetrieFlom @jrovner @sangerkatz @rachanadixit @emma_sandoe Description The Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation hosted this…
Big Data, Health Law, and Bioethics
Now available - order it online! From the book: When data from all aspects of our lives can be relevant to our health - from our habits at the grocery…
Prevalence of Publicly Available Expanded Access Policies
From the Article: The Food and Drug Administration's expanded access program allows patients with serious or immediately life‐threatening conditions to seek access to experimental drugs and treatments from…
Between the lines on insurers and drug rebates
From the article: UnitedHealthcare and Aetna have committed to lowering some consumers' out-of-pocket drug costs by sharing the rebates that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) negotiate with drug companies. More insurers…
Can Rationing through Inconvenience Be Ethical?
From the Article: In this article, we provide a comprehensive analysis and a normative assessment of rationing through inconvenience as a form of rationing. By “rationing through inconvenience”…
Promoting Competition To Address Pharmaceutical Prices
From the article Under ideal market conditions, competition among producers of a commercial good can drive down prices. The market for pharmaceuticals, however, is inefficient in many ways, leading to…
NSHRF Hosts AMS Funding Competitions / Fellowship, Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation
General Description: Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation (NSHRF) is hosting the Associated Medical Services (AMS) project grant, postdoctoral fellowship and doctoral completion award program. The purpose of these…
Lawmakers file a bill to block maneuvers like Allergan’s patent deal with Mohawks
From the article: Angered by a controversial Allergan (AGN1 ) patent maneuver, a handful of lawmakers introduced a bill that would prohibit tribal sovereign immunity from being used to block certain…
The Trump administration just made another big move to reshape the healthcare system
From the article: "Short-term insurance plans will cherry pick healthy people, leaving ACA-compliant plans to cover a sicker pool with higher premiums," Levitt tweeted. "With the expansion in short-term insurance…
Healthy People Health Policy Fellowship, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Description A fellowship is available in the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), Office of the Secretary (OS),…
Trump fires first salvo on drug prices
From the article: President Trump is beginning to move on high drug prices, unveiling a series of modest proposals in his budget request released Monday. It’s the first…
Reforming Biopharmaceutical Pricing at Home and Abroad
From the article: The affordability of healthcare and biopharmaceutical drugs is a top concern for Americans. It is often asserted that promoting innovation and affordable drugs are conflicting goals. New…
Budget, White Paper Provide Insight Into Trump Administration’s Strategy On Drug Pricing
From the article: During his first year in office, President Donald Trump spoke often about the problem of high drug prices but took no action on the subject. President Trump…
Trump’s abandoned promise to bring down drug prices, explained
From the article: One year into Donald Trump’s presidency, as he delivered his first State of the Union address, he has more or less abandoned his outspoken pledges…
The Federal Right to Try Act of 2017: A Wrong Turn for Access to Investigational Drugs and the Path Forward
From the article: In 2017, President Trump said that “one thing that’s always disturbed”1 him is that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denies access to…
Drug Policy: The Year In Review, And The Year Ahead
From the article: Last year was an unquestionably busy time for health care news of all kinds. Media and policy coverage rightly focused on the many attempts to repeal the…
Regulating Black-Box Medicine
From the paper: Data drive modern medicine. And our tools to analyze those data are growing ever more powerful. As health data are collected in greater and greater amounts, sophisticated…
Sixth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review
Couldn't join us? Check out the conversation on Twitter: @PetrieFlom #healthlawpreview2018 and some of our speakers' slide presentations below! Description The Sixth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review…
Revolutionizing the Delivery of Health Care: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium
Description The United States spends more on health care than any other country, but high spending often does not translate into improved outcomes, particularly in comparison to health systems in…
Health Law Workshop: Allison K. Hoffman
Presentation Presentation: "Health Care’s Market Bureaucracy" This paper is not available for download. To request a copy in preparation for the workshop, please contact Jennifer Minnich at jminnich…
Contraceptive Coverage and the Balance Between Conscience and Access
From the article: When the Obama administration included contraception in the essential benefits package to be covered by employer-sponsored health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act, it sought to…
Innovative Contracting for Pharmaceuticals and Medicaid’s Best-Price Rule
From the paper: In recent years, drug manufacturers and private payers have expressed interest in novel pricing models that more closely link a drug’s price to its value.…
What’s Next for the ACA?: A Lecture by Larry Levitt
Larry Levitt delivered a lecture on the future of the Affordable Care Act and health care in America. Larry Levitt is Senior Vice President for Special Initiatives at the Kaiser…
The Ethics of Health Care Reform: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium
Congress has been locked in debate over the last year about repealing the Affordable Care Act. There have been numerous controversies over the process used, as well as the outcome…
Influence, integrity, and the FDA: An ethical framework
Summary: Among the core missions of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are protecting public health by assuring the safety and efficacy of drugs, biologics, and medical devices…
New Serious Illness Program Design and Implementation Framework
As part of the Project on Advanced Care and Health Policy, the Petrie-Flom Center hosted two convenings on Critical Pathways to Improved Care for Serious Illness. Through roundtable discussions and…
Academic Fellow Alum Matthew J. B. Lawrence Joins Faculty at Dickinson Law (Penn State)
Matthew J.B. Lawrence has joined the faculty of Penn State’s Dickinson Law as assistant professor of law. An expert in the fields of health law and administrative…