Georgetown University Law Center

About: Georgetown University Law Center is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supreme court & Public health. The organization has 585 authors who have published 2488 publications receiving 36650 citations. The organization is also known as: Georgetown Law & GULC.

An O’Neill Institute Briefing Paper: The Supreme Court’s Landmark Decision on the Affordable Care Act: Healthcare Reform’s Ultimate Fate Remains Uncertain

Abstract: The Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a landmark on the path toward ensuring universal access to health care in the United States. In a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court upheld the law in its entirety with the sole exception that Congress may not revoke existing state Medicaid funding to penalize states that decline to participate in the Medicaid expansion under the ACA. In this O’Neill Institute Briefing, we explain and analyze the Court’s decision, focusing on the individual purchase mandate and the Medicaid expansion, while also explaining the fundamental shifts in constitutional interpretations that may affect public health, safety and environmental protection in the future.The precise significance of the individual mandate to the proper functioning of the ACA remains to be seen, primarily because the penalties are small relative to the cost of insurance. The IRS also has little enforcement authority if individuals elect not to purchase insurance. The mandate remains the only mechanism for the ACA’s financial sustainability. The importance of the Medicaid expansion cannot be overstated, as it is the sole means by which poor Americans will gain coverage. If states decline to participate there may be a social justice disaster in which disparities in access to health insurance in some states actually widen under the ACA as middle-class and well-off Americans gain access to insurance while the poor are left behind. Justice Roberts sided with the Court’s conservative wing to espouse a narrow view of Congress’ ability to regulate under the Commerce Clause, which could create challenges as future Congresses seek to address national public health problems. Even so, we conclude that the Court’s decision leaves the United States immensely better off in that future debates will likely center around how to ensure access to health care for all, not whether to do so – that debate is over, and the nation should push forward on the path toward universal coverage.

Technology Unbound: Will Funded Libertarianism Dominate the Future?

Abstract: The panel decision in Abigail Alliance, which found a constitutional right to use certain medicines that have not received Food and Drug Administration approval, may not survive further review, but it already stands as an important signpost on the road to further deregulation of the drug market. This trend mirrors the evolution of the in vitro fertilization (IVF) industry which is remarkably unregulated although it raises numerous ethical and consumer protection issues. These developments share an obvious libertarian underpinning, but in both cases it is an odd sort of libertarianism, because proponents of unmediated access to drugs and IVF also favor broad government funding of research in those areas, a type of state intervention that departs dramatically from libertarian norms. This sort of funded libertarianism is an unstable policy approach that is unlikely to survive.

Vertical Mergers in a Model of Upstream Monopoly and Incomplete Information

Abstract: We examine the role of private information on the impact of vertical mergers. A vertical merger can improve the information that is available to an upstream monopolist because, after the merger, the monopolist can observe the cost of its downstream merger partner. In the pre-merger world, because the costs of the downstream firms are private information, the monopolist has incomplete information and cannot implement the monopoly outcome: The expected pre-merger equilibrium price of the downstream product is lower than the monopoly price. After a vertical merger, the equilibrium input price that is charged to the downstream rival can either increase or decrease—depending on whether the downstream merger partner’s cost is low or high, respectively. However, in all cases the equilibrium price of the downstream product increases to the monopoly price. Therefore, the merger leads to consumer harm even when it leads to a reduction in the input price. The merged firm, however, cannot extract all of the monopoly profit: The merger causes production inefficiency (when the downstream rival has a relatively small cost advantage) and the downstream rival still earns an information rent (when it has a relatively large cost advantage). These results also have implications for vertical merger policy.