Authors

Authors		Table of Contents
Aspen Publishers		Faculty Page
Related Websites

Mark A. Hall Fred D. and Elizabeth L. Turnage Professor of Law and Public Health Wake Forest University	Mary Anne Bobinski Dean and Professor of Law University of British Columbia Faculty of Law
David Orentlicher Samuel R. Rosen Professor of Law Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law

This is the website for the complete 7th edition.

For the softbound volumes, see The Law of Health Care Finance and Regulation (2d ed.),
Bioethics and Public Health Law (2d ed.), and Medical Liability and Treatment Relationships (2d ed.)

For the previous edition, see 6th edition website.

* Significant New Developments *

Health Care Reform.

For a major update on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, click here.

By a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate to purchase health care, as a valid exercise of the taxing power. By a 7-2 vote, the Court held it unconstitutional for the government to condition a state's entire amount of federal funding for Medicaid on the state's willingness to participate in the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. For an edited version of the Court's opinion, see here. You can listen to the audio or read the transcripts from the Supreme Court oral arguments on March 26-28, 2012. For other legal documents and updates, see Brad Joondeph's excellent blog.

End-of-Life Decisions. In May 2013, Vermont became the third state to enact an aid in dying statute and the first state to do so by legislative action.

Washington became the second state to permit physician aid in dying in November 2008. A voter initiative--the Washington Death with Dignity Act--that was patterned on the Oregon Death with Dignity Act passed with 58 percent support. For the text of the act, click here.

In December 2009, the Montana Supreme Court held that physician aid in dying is permissible under Montana law. Baxter v State, 224 P.3d 1211 (Mont. 2009). The trial court had recognized a right to physician aid in dying under the Montana constitution, but the supreme court vacated the constitutional ruling and rested its holding on Montana statutory law. According to the supreme court, "a terminally ill patient's consent to physician aid in dying constitutes a statutory defense to a charge of homicide against the aiding physician."

In 2010, the New York legislature finally replaced its strict common law standard for withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from incompetent patients with a more flexible approach, similar to that adopted in New Jersey, California and some other states. Under the Family Health Care Decisions Act, family members or close friends may refuse life-sustaining treatment for patients who are terminally ill or permanently unconscious. In addition, for other patients who have an incurable condition, family members or close friends may refuse life-sustaining treatment that is inhumane or extraordinarily burdensome. N.Y. Pub. Health Law 2994-d.

Table of Contents

You will find updates and other supplemental information for each chapter by clicking on the chapter title below or scrolling down on this page to the list of subsections for each chapter. At the list of chapter subsections, you will find that there is additional material for the sections of the chapter that have links.

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Treatment Relationship: Formation and Termination
Chapter 3: The Treatment Relationship: Confidentiality, Consent and Conflicts of Interest
Chapter 4: Medical Malpractice
Chapter 5: The Right and "Duty" to Die
Chapter 6: Organ Transplantation: The Control, Use and Allocation of Body Parts
Chapter 7: Reproductive Rights and Genetic Technologies
Chapter 8: Public Health Law
Chapter 9: Health Care Financing and Reform
Chapter 10: Regulation of Health Care Facilities and Transactions