Unfinished Business: How Litigation Relates to Health Care Regulation

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2003

Journal Title

Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law

ISSN

0361-6878

DOI

10.1215/03616878-28-2-3-387

Abstract

“Regulation by litigation” is a recently recognized trend in American legal governance that develops differently in each economic sector it affects. In health care, widespread litigation can be viewed as the product of three partial transformations: incomplete industrialization, incomplete consumerism, and incomplete social solidarity. One can argue that the public turns to the courts because other actors who might exercise judgment and authority to resolve problems appear unreliable. Because litigation has several features at odds with sound health policy—including its cost,its hindsight bias, and its adversarial character—it may be necessary to develop new discretionary institutions to address specific questions that regulators cannot or will not answer.

First Page

387

Last Page

419

Num Pages

33

Volume Number

28

Issue Number

2-3

Publisher

Duke University Press

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