Reproductive Malpractice and the U.S. Military

Check out the new op-ed at HuffPo by Bill of Health bloggers Dov Fox and Alex Stein on the unfair treatment of American servicewomen (and their children) under the Feres doctrine should they fall victim to medical malpractice during their pregnancy or delivery. Fox and Stein call for SCOTUS to fix the loophole it left open in the 1950 case, or for Congress to “set up a fund for compensating children whose disabilities were caused by substandard care at military medical facilities.”  Take a look at the full post here.

King v. Burwell And The Importance Of State Politics

David K. Jones of the Boston University School of Public Health and a speaker at the Petrie-Flom Center’s “King v. Burwell and the Future of the Affordable Care Act” conference on April 1, has a new piece up at the Health Affairs Blog discussing the Supreme Court’s decision. From the piece: 

The Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell brings an important chapter of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) implementation to a close. The fight about health reform is not over, with Republican presidential candidates promising to repeal the law while supporters of the law push for Medicaid expansion and the development of Accountable Care Organizations.

But it is important to pause and reflect on what we have learned the last five years. This is uncharted territory for supporters of comprehensive health reform who for so many decades studied why legislation was so difficult to enact rather than how complicated it is to implement. […]

Read the full piece here.

The ACA Survives — But With A Note Of Caution For The Future?

By Rachel Sachs

Academic Fellow Rachel Sachs has a new piece up at the Health Affairs Blog discussing the Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell. From the piece: 

Chief Justice Roberts has once again saved a core provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In King v Burwell, a majority of six Justices upheld the validity of an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rule interpreting the text of the ACA to permit tax credits to be distributed through both state and federal insurance exchanges. As a result, the millions of Americans receiving subsidies through federally established exchanges in the states that have not chosen to establish their own exchanges will continue to receive them.

Much of the briefing and argument in King involved the legal principle known as Chevron deference, in which courts generally defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of statutes if the statutory language is ambiguous. In this case, the government first argued that the statutory language clearly permitted tax credits to be made available on federally established exchanges. But even if the statute was ambiguous, it contended, Chevron counseled deference to the IRS’ reasonable interpretation of the statute.

Read the full piece on the Health Affairs Blog!