Relating Health Law to Health Policy: A Frictional Account

Authors

William M. Sage, Texas A&M University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Book Section

Publication Date

5-2016

ISBN

9780199366521

DOI

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199366521.013.1

Abstract

To both its supporters and its opponents, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a law that redesigns the U.S. health care system in pursuit of sweeping health policy goals. This chapter explores in greater detail the principles underlying contemporary health law and health policy and reveals significant tensions between them. The chapter begins with an overview of public policy and the regulatory state, both in general and as applied to healthcare. It then turns to health law, identifying characteristics that shortchange its health policy capabilities, notably the antiregulatory bias that results from empowering physicians as proxy guardians of patients’ liberty interests. Finally, it explains why health law remains a significant obstacle to improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery notwithstanding the ACA.

First Page

3

Last Page

28

Num Pages

26

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Editor

I. Glenn Cohen, Allison K. Hoffman, & William Sage

Book Title

The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Health Law

Recommended Citation

William M. Sage, Relating Health Law to Health Policy: A Frictional Account, in The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Health Law 3 (I. Glenn Cohen, Allison K. Hoffman, & William Sage eds., 2016).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/1602