HE 210

Medicine and the law are inextricably intertwined. This article summarizes key issues in the realm of health care litigation, ranging from liability of insurers and health care providers to the role of courts in national health care policy-making.

Full Text of Health Affairs Journal (1994-present .1 year delay)

Robert J. Blendon, Sc.D., and John M. Benson, M.A. N Engl J Med 2017; 377:e12August 31, 2017

Gaffney, Adam; McCormick, Danny. The Lancet; London389.10077 (Apr 8, 2017): 1442-1452. Inequalities in medical care are endemic in the USA. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), passed in 2010 and fully implemented in 2014, was intended to expand coverage and bring about a new era of health-care access. In this review, we evaluate the legislation's impact on health-care equity. We consider the law's coverage expansion, insurance market reforms, cost and affordability provisions, and delivery-system reforms. Although the ACA improved coverage and access-particularly for poorer Americans, women, and minorities-its overall impact was modest in comparison with the gaps present before the law's implementation. Today, 29 million people in the USA remain uninsured, and substantial inequalities in access along economic, gender, and racial lines persist. Although most Americans agree that further reform is needed, the proper direction for reform-especially following the 2016 presidential election-is highly contentious. We discuss proposals for change from opposite sides of the political spectrum, together with their potential impact on health equity.

Glied, Sherry, PhD; Jackson, Adlan, BA. American Journal of Public Health; Washington. 107.4 (Apr 2017): 538-540. We describe the patterns of coverage gains associated with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) expansions and use these patterns to assess the potential impact of alternative repeal or repeal and replace strategies because Congress and the president are weighing options to repeal or replace the ACA. We find that specific provisions of the ACA, including the Medicaid expansion and the structure of premium subsidies, have been associated with large and robust gains in insurance coverage. We evaluate the impact of retaining dependent coverage and high-risk pool provisions and show, on the basis of the ACA experience, that these provisions would have little effect on coverage. We find that many replacement proposal components, including flat tax credits and maintaining cost savings provisions, could jeopardize the ability of many of the ACA's primary beneficiaries, as well as other Americans, to access coverage and care. By leading to a deterioration of the safety net, these strategies could also imperil population health activities.

The American Health Care Act of 2017 as passed by U.S. House in May 2017

July 13, 2017 from NPR. Note, bold type indicates some potential bias

New York Times topic page on Health Care Reform

Aug. 2016. JAMA editorial by Barack Obama

Note: Article in Fortune Magazine regarding Republican Congressperson Paul Ryan's version of a proposed health care bill. As a supporter of the bill, it may be biased.