- Access to Experimental Drugs. In Abigail Alliance v.
Eschenbach, 445 F.3d 470 (D.C. Cir. 2006), a panel of the court found a constitutional
right of terminally ill patients to use experimental drugs that have passed
successfully through Phase I of the FDA's drug approval process, when no
alternative treatment options are available. Six months later, the
decision was vacated, and the en banc court ultimately rejected the claim of a
constitutional right to use experimental drugs. The full court reasoned
that such a right is not deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition,
considering the long history of the regulation of pharmacists and
pharmaceuticals. During the litigation, the FDA proposed a new rule to give terminally
ill patients greater access to experimental drugs. See the update for
Chapter 5.B or
Chapter 8.C.2 for more discussion.
- End-of-Life Decisions. The Supreme Court has
rejected the federal government's effort to override Oregon's
assisted-suicide statute, in
Gonzales v. Oregon,
by a 6-3 vote, concluding that the Controlled Substances Act does not give the Attorney General
authority to
declare "illegitimate a medical standard for care and treatment of patients
that is specifically authorized under state law."
-
Health Care Financing.
In a major decision, Chaoulli v.
Quebec,
Canada's Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the aspect of
it's public health insurance system (known as "Medicare") that prohibits
private insurers from covering the same benefits. The purpose of this ban
is to keep wealthier people from avoiding the public system by purchasing
private coverage. The Court reasoned that the length of wait times for major
procedures under the government program threatened peoples' health, and so
this restriction amounted to what U.S. law would characterize as a
substantive due process violation. For more information, see
the update for
Chapter 9.F.1.
For material on consumer-driven health care, see updates in
Chapter 1.C.3 and
Chapter 9.A.
- Managed Care Liability. In Aetna Health Inc. v.
Davila, 542 U.S. 200 (2004), the Supreme Court unanimously held that ERISA
pre-empts state law tort claims that are based on coverage determinations by
health insurers. This important decision resolves much of the uncertainty
created by the Court's prior ERISA decision in Pegram v. Herdrich. See the
update for Chapter 4.F.2 for more
discussion.
- Organ Transplantation. In a change from the Uniform Anatomical
Gift Act of 1987, the
Revised Uniform
Anatomical Gift Act (2006) rejects authority for coroners or medical
examiners to retrieve organs from decedents in their custody. See the update for
Chapter 6.B.1 or
Chapter 4.B.1 for more detail.
- Prescription Drug Benefit. On December 8, 2003, President Bush signed into law the Medicare
Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, H.R. 1. This is
the most significant change to the Medicare program since its inception in
1965. The major provisions are discussed in the updates for
Chapter 9.A.
- Reproductive Rights. On April 18, 2007, in
Gonzales v.
Carhart, 127 S. Ct. 1610 (2007), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a
congressional ban on the intact dilation and extraction (D&X) abortion procedure
(also characterized as "partial-birth abortion") in a 5-4 decision. The
Court concluded that the federal statute's greater specificity and precision
distinguished it from the Nebraska statute struck down in Stenberg v. Carhart,
Chapter 7.B.2.
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