Health Law and Policy

Health Law and Policy - Professor Barbara Safriet

  • Course Number: LAW-560
  • Course Type: Foundational
  • Credits: 3
  • Enrollment Limit: Determined by the Registrar
  • Description:

    This course will focus on a variety of current legal and policy issues in the financing and delivery of health care in the United States. A summary of course coverage includes the following:

    - A comparative review of other countries’ delivery and payment laws and practices

    - Identification of legal provisions which create or amplify continuing problems with Access to, and the Costs and Quality of health care in the US

    - Recent efforts to address some of these problems - the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, and its current implementation

    - The division (and overlap) of federal and state responsibilities/authority over payment for and the qualifications of individual and institutional health care providers

    - The central role of non-governmental entities in determining enforceable standards

    - Constitutional and statutory implications for the “right to care”, or “to refuse care”, or to “die with dignity”

    - The role and scope of Public Health, with its focus on population rather than individual health: Governmental legal powers, duties and limits

  • Prerequisite: none
  • Evaluation Method: Attendance and participation, comments on weekly readings, Project paper.
  • Capstone: yes, with professor permission
  • WIE: yes, with professor permission