By The Petrie-Flom Center On behalf of our colleagues at Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, we wanted to let you know about the following event: Massachusetts: A Community Approach to Quality, Affordable Health Care Tuesday, November 13th 6 – 7:30pm (food provided) Wasserstein 1015, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA Six…
By Nicole Huberfeld Earlier this week, Jonathan Adler wrote in the National Review Online that challenges to the individual mandate were just beginning. And today, Oklahoma’s September challenge to the ACA is making headlines. As I have described before, one of the new theories by which Jonathan Adler and the Cato Institute are seeking to…
By Leslie P. Francis On October 4, four Republican Congressman, all with powerful positions concerning health care, wrote Secretary Sebelius urging suspension of “meaningful use” Stage 2 payments until a stronger program is in place. The Congressmen, Dave Camp (Chair of the House Ways & Means Committee), Wally Herger (Chair of the Ways & Means…
By Vickie J. Williams I am back after a brief hiatus for the Jewish holidays. L’Shanah Tova to all my readers who have just celebrated the Jewish New Year. The first Monday in October is, of course, a special day for all of us legal eagles–the Supreme Court is back in session. The other significant thing…
by Suzanne M. Rivera, Ph.D. The Presidential debate on Wednesday was fascinating theater. Much of the post-debate commentary in social media has focused on Mitt Romney’s threat to cut federal funding to PBS as a way of reducing the deficit (save Big Bird!) and President Obama’s unexpected restraint (including this piece of NSFW satire from…
By Katie Booth The New York Times recently reported that the switch to Electronic Health Records (“EHRs”) may be contributing to rising Medicare costs. The Times described two hospitals where the portion of patients billed at the highest reimbursement rate rose by over 40% when the hospitals adopted EHRs. The Times also reported that in…
By Scott Burris No, I mean it: this is a question to Bill of Health readers who know about the law on this topic. This week, a colleague handed me a palm card she’d been given at a subway station here in Philadelphia. “Cash for diabetic test strips” it read. Comparing prices on the company’s…
By Adriana Lee Benedict Earlier this year, the World Health Organization’s Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG) issued a report calling for, inter alia, increased support for innovative pharmaceutical R&D funding mechanisms. Although lack of financing has posed a challenge to implementation of alternative approaches to R&D, the increasing…
By Abby Moncrieff First, an uncontroversial statement: Despite academics’ resistance, libertarian arguments played a huge role in the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision. That seems obvious. Chief Justice Roberts and the four dissenters based their Commerce Clause analyses largely on notions of individual freedom, asserting that the federal government should not be allowed to force individuals…
By Holly Fernandez Lynch Our friends over at the New England Journal of Medicine just alerted us to a new perspectives piece addressing the impact of cutting family planning funds in Texas (the piece was also picked up by Politico). The authors interviewed 56 leaders of organizations throughout the state that provided reproductive health services using…
