Category: Frank Pasquale

By Nicolas Terry and Frank Pasquale

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With help from our good friend Nathan Cortez from SMU School of Law we discuss the American Health Care Act. Nathan is a thought leader in both health law and policy and administrative law and legislation–intersecting forms of expertise particularly valuable in these turbulent times.

In addition to coming to grips with some of its complex provisions, we speculated on how it will fare in the Senate, given emerging details about working groups and Democratic bridge-building by the Gang of Three (Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp, and Tim “Copper Plan” Kaine). Here Professor Cortez’s expertise on Reconciliation and the Byrd Amendment proved essential. We also, let truth be told, took the opportunity to get a few things off our collective chests!

For background on AHCA: Andy Slavitt has been a diligent collector of summaries & critical commentary. In a media environment where the lies being told about AHCA’s effects on coverage are described as “flagrant,” “bald-faced,” and “gas-lighting,” expert voices are needed now more than ever. Some predict that the class warfare embodied in the bill’s distributional effects would cause a “humanitarian crisis” if it came to pass; others worry it would undo the pillars of not merely Obamacare and Medicaid, but also employer-sponsored plans. One thing appears certain: expect bankruptcy law to renew its advance onto health law syllabi. Read More

By Nicolas Terry and Frank Pasquale

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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, a magisterial account of goals, problems, and solutions in a wide array of policy conflicts.

Policy Paradox has had four editions over 25 years and has been translated into five languages. As Stone argues in the book, “behind every policy issue lurks a contest over conflicting, though equally plausible, conceptions of the same abstract goal or value.” Recognizing the deep pluralism of values and aims, Stone wisely counsels that “the job of the policy designer…is to understand the rules of the game well enough to know the standard moves and countermoves, and to think about them strategically.”

With this theoretical structure firmly in mind, we discuss the ACA and healthcare in the world of Trump. We also asked Deborah about her article “Caring Communities: What Would it Take?,” a patient-centered, care-focused counter-narrative to technocratic quantification. Grounding present conflicts in a longer-term view of the role of policymakers in a democracy, Stone offers perspective on the future of health equity in a polity where even the basic concept of risk pooling now appears contestable.

The Week in Health Law Podcast from Frank Pasquale and Nicolas Terry is a commuting-length discussion about some of the more thorny issues in Health Law & Policy. Subscribe at iTunes, listen at Stitcher Radio, Tunein and Podbean, or search for The Week in Health Law in your favorite podcast app. Show notes and more are at TWIHL.com. If you have comments, an idea for a show or a topic to discuss you can find us on Twitter @nicolasterry @FrankPasquale @WeekInHealthLaw.