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Shifting Antitrust Laws and Regulations in the Wake of Hospital Mergers: Taking the Focus Off of Elective Markets and Centering Health Care
Get PDFAccess to health care requires access to a care center and access to comprehensive health care services. Rampant hospital mergers are uniquely poised to reduce both the number of hospitals, requiring patients to travel further, and the services provided within a newly merged hospital, namely reproductive health services. This phenomenon is clearly seen through the merging of secular and nonsecular hospitals, which often result in patients being forced to travel much further for reproductive health care. In the United States’ current model, health care is not a right, but is treated as a commodity. As such, it is governed by antitrust law. Current antitrust law is, however, an inadequate regulatory mechanism. The burdens of proof provided by the controlling laws, the Clayton Act and the Sherman Act, are ambiguous and do not account for the fact that full spectrum health care is not a commodity that can be foregone. This note proposes to address the deficiencies in the relevant antitrust law by amending both statutes to include health care specific language. Additionally, this note amends the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Horizontal Merger Guidelines to provide mechanisms for the government to evaluate access to care during the premerger approval process. The concrete language in these three amendments will embolden the FTC to challenge more mergers and provide courts with greater direction when evaluating those challenges
Compulsory DNA Testing in Argentina: The Right to Truth Versus the Right to Privacy
Get PDFDuring the Dirty War—a seven year repression by the Argentinian junta of political dissidents and alleged subversives—an estimated 500 babies were stolen from their mothers while imprisoned and given to leading military officials as adopted children. These children had their true identities erased and replaced with a false one covering up their true origins. This Note will explore Argentina\u27s response to the Dirty War. Namely, it will consider the tension between the right to truth—an international right right often associated with enforced disappearances—and the right to privacy. In particular, it will consider cases in which adults resisted DNA testing to confirm whether they are among the group of children who were forcibly separated from their mothers. Finally, it will suggest reforms to Argentina\u27s DNA law so that it better respects an individual\u27s right to privacy
Health Insurance and Bankruptcy Risk: Examining the Impact of the Affordable Care Act
Get PDFThe passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) in 2010 represented a watershed moment for healthcare in the United States. As is well-noted, the federal courts are still wrangling over the constitutionality of the law, and there is significant uncertainty regarding the extent to which the ACA will survive these legal battles. Unquestionably, the ACA has expanded access to health insurance for many millions of Americans. Prior to the advent of the ACA, Medicaid income eligibility for adults without dependents was approximately 61 percent of the Federal Poverty Line. Empirical studies since the advent of the ACA have generally proven positive in exploring the relationship between the expansion of available health insurance upon personal finances. This Essay is one of the first empirical efforts to specifically address the association between the ACA and the rate of bankruptcy filings across the country. The studies just described tended to focus on medical bills, rather than bankruptcy specifically. Similarly, most legal scholars have focused primarily on the causal relationship between the presence of overwhelming medical debt and the need to file for bankruptcy relief. Years of research have proven inconclusive on this front, largely because of the difficulties associated with defining and measuring “medical debt.” Stated differently, our findings suggest that by more robustly providing health insurance coverage for low-income Americans, the ACA has had some effect on the risk of filing for bankruptcy protection. Although future research is still needed to uncover causal mechanisms on the role possessing health insurance may have on an individual’s ultimate decision to file for bankruptcy relief, our preliminary findings suggest that the ACA may lower one’s risk for bankruptcy
Black Deaths Matter: the Race-of-Victim Effect and Capital Punishment
Get PDFThe racial dimensions of the death penalty are well-documented. Many observers assume this state of affairs derives from bias—often implicit and occasionally explicit—against black defendants in particular. Research points to an even more alarming factor. The race of the victim, not the defendant, steers cases in the direction of death. Regardless of the perpetrator’s race, those who kill whites are more likely to face capital charges, receive a death sentence, and die by execution than those who murder blacks. This short Essay adds a contemporary gloss to the race-of-victim effect literature, placing it in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement and showing how it relates to the broader, systemic devaluation of Black lives
Civil Asset Forfeitures: How Prosecutors Can Facilitate Community-Based Criminal Justice Reform
Get PDFCriminal justice reform is elusive in the United States. Despite evidence that the system is broken, change remains ephemeral at best. This is partially attributable to the fact that most attempts to reform the criminal legal system have occurred through the political process. However, another method of criminal justice reform is to assist communities as they address the root causes of crime. Undergirding this approach is the belief that building stronger communities contributes to less crime and reduces recidivism. After seizing $250 million via prosecutions of financial crimes in 2016, the New York County District Attorney’s Office created a “first-of-its-kind” initiative to reinvest those seized funds into the communities of Manhattan in New York City. This “Criminal Justice Investment Initiative” (CJII) seeks to empower said communities through a variety of programs to prevent crime from happening in the first place. This Note argues that prosecutorial offices across the United States should create similar initiatives that derive funding solely from seizures related to financial crimes. In doing so, it highlights why the political process is unequipped to enable criminal justice reform, explains the notion of community-based criminal justice reform, explores the CJII, and finally demonstrates the pitfalls of constructing such initiatives around traditional civil asset forfeitures
