This week we talked with Robert I. Field, Professor of Law at Drexel University. Robert is also a professor of health management and policy at Drexel’s Dornsife School of Public Health, a lecturer in health care management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a senior fellow of Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. He is the author of “Mother of Invention: How the Government Created ‘Free-Market’ Health Care,” which presents a historical overview of government programs in creating and maintaining the health care system and places health reform in the context of an ongoing evolutionary process. He is also the author of “Health Care Regulation in America: Complexity, Confrontation and Compromise,” a comprehensive overview of health care regulation.
We discussed a number of recent developments surrounding the ACA, including the most recent judicial challenges (and their potential to congeal into an emerging ACA SCOTUS jurisprudence) and legislative attacks. We discussed mainstream health economists’ zeal for the Cadillac tax, despite such thin evidence it will actually raise wages. We closed with a discussion of one theme from Robert’s book: what the US health care sector would look like if there were dramatic reductions in government support and regulation.
The Week in Health Law Podcast from Frank Pasquale and Nicolas Terry is a commuting-length discussion about some of the more thorny issues in Health Law & Policy. Subscribe at iTunes, listen at Stitcher Radio, Tunein and Podbean, or search for The Week in Health Law in your favorite podcast app. Show notes and more are at TWIHL.com. If you have comments, an idea for a show or a topic to discuss you can find us on twitter @nicolasterry @FrankPasquale @WeekInHealthLaw