Health Care Organization and Finance Law

Fundamentals of American Health Law provides a solid grounding in the financing and organization of health care delivery in the United States, the legal and public policy issues raised by the current structure of health care delivery, and their implications for health care reform. The course will begin with a historical overview of the American health care system, identification of the various stakeholders in the health care arena, and a discussion of how health care is currently financed, accessed and delivered. We will then focus on the financing of health care, including review of the major payers (private health insurance, self-insured health plans, Medicare, Medicaid), and the necessity for and breadth of regulation and reimbursement of heath care providers, including hospitals, physicians, medical equipment suppliers, other individual traditional providers, and providers of alternative medicine. We will then consider health care reform options, underlying policy considerations, and political obstacles to health care reform. This will include a discussion of prior efforts to reform health care, and their successes and failures.