The Week in Health Law

Brown University School of Public Health researcher and teacher Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler joins us for a far-reaching conversation about social determinants of health. In particular, we discuss medico-legal partnerships and their role in filling unmet legal needs that are themselves increasingly recognized as social determinants. We discuss issues framed by Professor Tobin-Tyler’s scholarship such as professionalism, conflicts of interest, funding, and medico-legal education.

We are joined by Deborah Stone, Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. She is famous for her classic, “Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making,” which has had four editions over 25 years and has been translated into five languages. We discuss the ACA and healthcare in the world of Trump and a counter-narrative to technocratic healthcare based on “caring.”

Health policy researcher Heather Howard returns to the pod and, not surprisingly, Medicaid was the focus of our talk. We discussed various Medicaid issues; the extent non-expansion was driven by policy or politics, work requirements under Section 1115 waivers, state administrative costs associated with draconian Medicaid expansion criteria (particularly when compared to the macroeconomic effects of a robust healthcare system), cost-sharing and the “private option” in existing state plans, and the likelihood of Section 1332 waivers moving states to universal care or, at least, meaningful innovation.

Microeconomist Craig Garthwaite from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University joins us. We discussed the structural challenges both in the ACA marketplaces and the proposed, and the Zombie-like AHCA. The conversation moved from the three-legged stool to other causes of market fragility, the reasons for the recent slowdown in health care spending, and whether insurance expansion overtaxed our healthcare system, and issues surrounding emergency department utilization.

This week's conversation was with Northeastern University School of Law Professor, Andrea Matwyshyn. An expert on cyber security and healthcare Andrea helped us understand the changing approached of federal regulatory agencies, the continued threats from the Internet of Health Things and how the market and policymakers must find ways to reward developers for producing safe and secure code. We ended with a brief discussion (unlikely to be our last) of Blockchain as a security model.

Joined by Michigan University School of Law Professor Nicholas Bagley, an expert on health law and federalism, we discussed “Federalism and the End of Obamacare,” his recent and extremely thoughtful Yale Law Journal essay. We also talked about the risk corridor payments litigation and wondered whether the insurers will ever get paid.

A  great conversation with UMKC Law Professor Ann Marie Marciarille. We discuss a brand range of topics, including the post-NFIB Medicaid “gamble,” the concept of the cost-shifting hydraulic, our less-than-rigorous mechanisms for dealing with infectious diseases, the long-tail of the Actavis case, and what happens when your inhaler stops working in the Portuguese Azores (and what that tells us about our drug distribution and pricing models).

A fascinating discussion with UK-based digital anthropologist Lydia Nicholas. We talk about the problems of digital news (and healthcare) bubbles and the problems about constructing a digital space for those who are vulnerable or not digitally native. In the process we touch on the problems surrounding the UK’s much troubled care.data initiative and the issues raised by the relationship between Google Deep Mind and the Royal Free hospitals. But, we also touch on the optimism underlying future initiatives being baked into the UK’s version of a learning healthcare system.

We greet two experts in the burgeoning field of food law. Joanna Sax is a Professor of Law at California Western School of Law. She’s interested in the science-law nexus and particularly in GMO foods. Diana Winters is a Professor of Law at IU McKinney School of Law. Her research involves issues of food safety, the decision-making processes of federal agencies, and some of the federalism issues that arise in the food safety domain. Our conversation was wide-ranging as you would expect of this emerging, important field of law.

We greet two experts in the burgeoning field of food law. Joanna Sax is a Professor of Law at California Western School of Law. She’s interested in the science-law nexus and particularly in GMO foods. Diana Winters is a Professor of Law at IU McKinney School of Law. Her research involves issues of food safety, the decision-making processes of federal agencies, and some of the federalism issues that arise in the food safety domain. Our conversation was wide-ranging as you would expect of this emerging, important field of law.

We greet Judy Solomon, Vice President for Health Policy at the nonpartisan research and policy institute, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, for a broad-reaching discussion on ACA repeal/replacement/repair and the increasingly likely restructuring of Medicaid. We delve deep into Medicaid policy, block grants, and what we know about “innovative” expansion models.

We greet Judy Solomon, Vice President for Health Policy at the nonpartisan research and policy institute, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, for a broad-reaching discussion on ACA repeal/replacement/repair and the increasingly likely restructuring of Medicaid. We delve deep into Medicaid policy, block grants, and what we know about “innovative” expansion models.

Washington University law professor and bioethicist Rebecca Dresser joins us to discuss her latest book, Silent Partners: Human Subjects and Research Ethics. This scholarly yet in many ways acutely personal examination of the ethics surrounding human subjects research makes a powerful statement in favor of subject inclusion to counter balance what Dresser calls researcher ethnocentrism. Among fascinating topics we discuss are dealing with rule-breaking research subjects and the treatment of research subjects in fiction.

Washington University law professor and bioethicist Rebecca Dresser joins us to discuss her latest book, Silent Partners: Human Subjects and Research Ethics. This scholarly yet in many ways acutely personal examination of the ethics surrounding human subjects research makes a powerful statement in favor of subject inclusion to counter balance what Dresser calls researcher ethnocentrism. Among fascinating topics we discuss are dealing with rule-breaking research subjects and the treatment of research subjects in fiction.

Georgia State Professor of Law Erin Fusee Brown makes a welcome return to the podcast. Our discussion centered on surprise medical bills (including balance billing),“inscrutable price opacity,” and medical debt collection, This is a difficult area and one that the ACA only began to confront. Looking forward, our consensus was that increasingly this will become the province of “bifurcated” state laws acting, of course, under the specter of ERISA preemption.