The successes of most African marriages are largely predicated on child bearing. The discovery of childlessness in marriage often comes with psychological and physical torture, sometimes resulting in self-blame and seeking possible options, one of which is adoption. Adoption is a unique mode of establishing a family relationship between a person and a child of a known or unknown parentage with a view to making such a child legally that of the adopting parent. Adoption allows persons to legally assume the role of parenthood over a child that is not biologically borne by them. The reason for which a person may wish to adopt could range from infertility to need to get a particular sex or provide companionship for an only child, to stabilize a childless marriage, or to provide care for children who have been abandoned or rejected, or to ‘replace’ a dead child. Adoption is not just about picking any child of one’s choice and claiming of ownership. This paper focuses on an appraisal of the necessary procedures to comply with when adopting a child, whether to reside within or outside Nigerian jurisdiction. The doctrinal method of research such as textbooks, journal articles, case laws, internet materials etc. were used to carry out this research. Findings revealed that there are lots of legal gymnastics or hurdles involved which may be difficult to successfully navigate without professional help including the challenge of taking the child outside Nigeria. Therefore, it is recommended that there should be established legal frameworks that promote comprehensive child adoption laws that harmonize internal and international instruments, to back implementation of these laws with needed enforcement procedure.
{"title":"ADOPTION WITHOUT TEARS: APPRAISAL OF THE LEGAL REQUIREMENTS IN NIGERIA AND OTHER JURISDICTIONS","authors":"J. A. M. Agbonika, Josephine A. A. Agbonika","doi":"10.47672/ajl.882","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.47672/ajl.882","url":null,"abstract":"The successes of most African marriages are largely predicated on child bearing. The discovery of childlessness in marriage often comes with psychological and physical torture, sometimes resulting in self-blame and seeking possible options, one of which is adoption. Adoption is a unique mode of establishing a family relationship between a person and a child of a known or unknown parentage with a view to making such a child legally that of the adopting parent. Adoption allows persons to legally assume the role of parenthood over a child that is not biologically borne by them. The reason for which a person may wish to adopt could range from infertility to need to get a particular sex or provide companionship for an only child, to stabilize a childless marriage, or to provide care for children who have been abandoned or rejected, or to ‘replace’ a dead child. Adoption is not just about picking any child of one’s choice and claiming of ownership. This paper focuses on an appraisal of the necessary procedures to comply with when adopting a child, whether to reside within or outside Nigerian jurisdiction. The doctrinal method of research such as textbooks, journal articles, case laws, internet materials etc. were used to carry out this research. Findings revealed that there are lots of legal gymnastics or hurdles involved which may be difficult to successfully navigate without professional help including the challenge of taking the child outside Nigeria. Therefore, it is recommended that there should be established legal frameworks that promote comprehensive child adoption laws that harmonize internal and international instruments, to back implementation of these laws with needed enforcement procedure. \u0000 ","PeriodicalId":7680,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Law & Medicine","volume":"142 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74167698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"AMJ volume 47 issue 4 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/amj.2022.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/amj.2022.9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7680,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Law & Medicine","volume":"47 1","pages":"f1 - f6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44075801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"AMJ volume 47 issue 4 Cover and Back matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/amj.2022.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/amj.2022.10","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7680,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Law & Medicine","volume":" ","pages":"b1 - b1"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43973728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How can an agency like the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (“FDA”) effectively regulate software that is constantly learning and adapting to real-world data? Continuously learning algorithms pose significant public health risks if a medical device can change overtime to fundamentally alter the nature of a device post-market. This Article evaluates the FDA’s proposed regulatory framework for artificially intelligent medical devices against the backdrop of the current technology, as well as industry professionals’ desired trajectory, to determine whether the proposed regulatory framework can ensure safe and reliable medical devices without stifling innovation. Ultimately, the FDA succeeds in placing effective limits on continuously learning algorithms while giving manufacturers freedom to allow their devices to adapt to real-world data. The framework, however, does not give adequate attention to protecting patient data, monitoring cybersecurity, and ensuring safety and efficacy. The FDA, medical device industry, and relevant policymakers should increase oversight of these areas to protect patients and providers relying on this new technology.
{"title":"When Medical Devices Have a Mind of Their Own: The Challenges of Regulating Artificial Intelligence","authors":"Jessa Boubker","doi":"10.1017/amj.2022.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/amj.2022.3","url":null,"abstract":"How can an agency like the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (“FDA”) effectively regulate software that is constantly learning and adapting to real-world data? Continuously learning algorithms pose significant public health risks if a medical device can change overtime to fundamentally alter the nature of a device post-market. This Article evaluates the FDA’s proposed regulatory framework for artificially intelligent medical devices against the backdrop of the current technology, as well as industry professionals’ desired trajectory, to determine whether the proposed regulatory framework can ensure safe and reliable medical devices without stifling innovation. Ultimately, the FDA succeeds in placing effective limits on continuously learning algorithms while giving manufacturers freedom to allow their devices to adapt to real-world data. The framework, however, does not give adequate attention to protecting patient data, monitoring cybersecurity, and ensuring safety and efficacy. The FDA, medical device industry, and relevant policymakers should increase oversight of these areas to protect patients and providers relying on this new technology.","PeriodicalId":7680,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Law & Medicine","volume":"47 1","pages":"427 - 454"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45685166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The COVID-19 pandemic brought critical debates regarding private equity ownership of long-term care facilities to the forefront of political, legal, and social landscapes. Like many of the historical concerns about long-term care, these debates center around low quality patient care. While the concerns present important challenges to overcome, this note theorizes the kinds of organizational incentives that may provide opportunities to align patient quality care with the financial goals of private equity investing. After a discussion of the historical context of long term care facilities and the more recent trends towards for-profit and private equity ownership of these facilities (Parts II and III), I engage with value-based models as a starting point to consider organizational level incentive possibilities (Part IV). In Part V, I consider an organizational-level pay for performance model, a time-bound incentive structure, and investor-specific incentives as three distinct possibilities for addressing the patient care issues identified.
{"title":"Toward a Preliminary Theory of Organizational Incentives: Addressing Incentive Misalignment in Private Equity-Owned Long-Term Care Facilities","authors":"Alesha Ignatius Brereton","doi":"10.1017/amj.2022.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/amj.2022.4","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic brought critical debates regarding private equity ownership of long-term care facilities to the forefront of political, legal, and social landscapes. Like many of the historical concerns about long-term care, these debates center around low quality patient care. While the concerns present important challenges to overcome, this note theorizes the kinds of organizational incentives that may provide opportunities to align patient quality care with the financial goals of private equity investing. After a discussion of the historical context of long term care facilities and the more recent trends towards for-profit and private equity ownership of these facilities (Parts II and III), I engage with value-based models as a starting point to consider organizational level incentive possibilities (Part IV). In Part V, I consider an organizational-level pay for performance model, a time-bound incentive structure, and investor-specific incentives as three distinct possibilities for addressing the patient care issues identified.","PeriodicalId":7680,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Law & Medicine","volume":"47 1","pages":"455 - 476"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41752985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The advent of artificial intelligence (“AI”) holds great potential to improve clinical diagnostics. At the same time, there are important questions of liability for harms arising from the use of this technology. Due to their complexity, opacity, and lack of foreseeability, AI systems are not easily accommodated by traditional liability frameworks. This difficulty is compounded in the health care space where various actors, namely physicians and health care organizations, are subject to distinct but interrelated legal duties regarding the use of health technology. Without a principled way to apportion responsibility among these actors, patients may find it difficult to recover for injuries. In this Article, I propose that physicians, manufacturers of clinical AI systems, and hospitals be considered a common enterprise for the purposes of liability. This proposed framework helps facilitate the apportioning of responsibility among disparate actors under a single legal theory. Such an approach responds to concerns about the responsibility gap engendered by clinical AI technology as it shifts away from individualistic notions of responsibility, embodied by negligence and products liability, toward a more distributed conception. In addition to favoring plaintiff recovery, a common enterprise strict liability approach would create strong incentives for the relevant actors to take care.
{"title":"Applying a Common Enterprise Theory of Liability to Clinical AI Systems","authors":"Benny Chan","doi":"10.1017/amj.2022.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/amj.2022.1","url":null,"abstract":"The advent of artificial intelligence (“AI”) holds great potential to improve clinical diagnostics. At the same time, there are important questions of liability for harms arising from the use of this technology. Due to their complexity, opacity, and lack of foreseeability, AI systems are not easily accommodated by traditional liability frameworks. This difficulty is compounded in the health care space where various actors, namely physicians and health care organizations, are subject to distinct but interrelated legal duties regarding the use of health technology. Without a principled way to apportion responsibility among these actors, patients may find it difficult to recover for injuries. In this Article, I propose that physicians, manufacturers of clinical AI systems, and hospitals be considered a common enterprise for the purposes of liability. This proposed framework helps facilitate the apportioning of responsibility among disparate actors under a single legal theory. Such an approach responds to concerns about the responsibility gap engendered by clinical AI technology as it shifts away from individualistic notions of responsibility, embodied by negligence and products liability, toward a more distributed conception. In addition to favoring plaintiff recovery, a common enterprise strict liability approach would create strong incentives for the relevant actors to take care.","PeriodicalId":7680,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Law & Medicine","volume":"47 1","pages":"351 - 385"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47937848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Episode III:California v. Texas—On June 21, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court issued their long-awaited decision on California v. Texas, “the third installment in the epic trilogy” of cases challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”).1 In a 7-to-2 decision authored by Justice Breyer, the Court found that both the individual plaintiffs and the states lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of the so-called individual mandate.2
{"title":"Episode III: California v. Texas","authors":"J. Watson","doi":"10.1017/amj.2022.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/amj.2022.6","url":null,"abstract":"Episode III:California v. Texas—On June 21, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court issued their long-awaited decision on California v. Texas, “the third installment in the epic trilogy” of cases challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”).1 In a 7-to-2 decision authored by Justice Breyer, the Court found that both the individual plaintiffs and the states lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of the so-called individual mandate.2","PeriodicalId":7680,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Law & Medicine","volume":"47 1","pages":"507 - 512"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49199711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health andHuman Services: End of Federal EvictionMoratoriumCurtails Expansive Interpretation of CDC’s Statutory Authority—Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labor market, millions of Americans experienced sharp reductions in household income and faced increased housing insecurity.1 Record levels of unemployment, destabilized communities, and a lack of affordable housing all contributed to increased risk of bankruptcy and foreclosure.2 Estimates showed that 30 to 40 million Americans would be at risk of eviction during the COVID-19 pandemic without government intervention.3 As federal, state, and local governments failed to renew expiring housing protections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) announced its own federal eviction mortarium.4 This unprecedented action raised serious implementation, constitutionality, and statutory concerns. Numerous courts reviewed challenges to the federal eviction moratorium between 2020 to 2021, but analyseswere inconsistent.5 InAlabama Association of Realtors (“AAR”) v. Department of Health andHuman Services (“HHS”), the Supreme Court of the United States (“Supreme Court”) confirmed that the federal eviction moratorium was unlawful.6 Consequently, the CDC’s federal eviction moratorium ended on August 26, 2021. In AAR v. HHS, trade associations, real estate professionals, and rental management corporations (“Plaintiffs”) brought suit against the HHS, CDC, and several government officials (“Government”) challenging the federal eviction moratorium on statutory and constitutional grounds.7 On May 5, 2021, the United States District Court for
{"title":"Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services: End of Federal Eviction Moratorium Curtails Expansive Interpretation of CDC’s Statutory Authority","authors":"Christina Fuleihan","doi":"10.1017/amj.2022.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/amj.2022.7","url":null,"abstract":"Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health andHuman Services: End of Federal EvictionMoratoriumCurtails Expansive Interpretation of CDC’s Statutory Authority—Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labor market, millions of Americans experienced sharp reductions in household income and faced increased housing insecurity.1 Record levels of unemployment, destabilized communities, and a lack of affordable housing all contributed to increased risk of bankruptcy and foreclosure.2 Estimates showed that 30 to 40 million Americans would be at risk of eviction during the COVID-19 pandemic without government intervention.3 As federal, state, and local governments failed to renew expiring housing protections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) announced its own federal eviction mortarium.4 This unprecedented action raised serious implementation, constitutionality, and statutory concerns. Numerous courts reviewed challenges to the federal eviction moratorium between 2020 to 2021, but analyseswere inconsistent.5 InAlabama Association of Realtors (“AAR”) v. Department of Health andHuman Services (“HHS”), the Supreme Court of the United States (“Supreme Court”) confirmed that the federal eviction moratorium was unlawful.6 Consequently, the CDC’s federal eviction moratorium ended on August 26, 2021. In AAR v. HHS, trade associations, real estate professionals, and rental management corporations (“Plaintiffs”) brought suit against the HHS, CDC, and several government officials (“Government”) challenging the federal eviction moratorium on statutory and constitutional grounds.7 On May 5, 2021, the United States District Court for","PeriodicalId":7680,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Law & Medicine","volume":"47 1","pages":"513 - 522"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44656770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Individuals with disabilities are sixteen times more likely to be killed by officers during a law enforcement encounter than other individuals. As the ever-growing list of victims demonstrates, law enforcement violence against individuals with disabilities is a national crisis. Yet, the current test, developed under Graham v. Connor, for whether officers’ use of force is excessive during an arrest considers only three factors: severity of the crime, immediacy of the threat, and resistance to arrest or attempts to flee. On its face, Graham’s three-factor test does not contemplate whether an arrestee’s individual characteristics are relevant to an officer’s use of force. Recognizing that the Graham factors are “non-exhaustive” and “flexible,” some lower federal courts have relaxed the excessive force test to account for particular circumstances. However, there is no consensus among the circuit courts and the Supreme Court has not revisited the Graham test. Over three decades later, courts still do not have sufficient guidance on how to address individual disability under Graham. This Note advocates that in adherence to Graham’s expressed flexibility, its three-factor test should be reformulated to add in a fourth factor inspired by Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act to account for whether “reasonable modifications” of an individual’s disability were made in situations when law enforcement employs force during the course of an arrest. Applying this standard in cases where an officer “reasonably should know” the arrestee has a disability promotes a baseline assumption that law enforcement officers have an active role in accommodating all disabilities.
在执法遭遇中,残疾人被警察杀害的可能性是其他人的16倍。越来越多的受害者表明,针对残疾人的执法暴力是一场全国性的危机。然而,根据格雷厄姆诉康纳案(Graham v. Connor)制定的现行标准,判断警察在逮捕过程中是否过度使用武力,只考虑三个因素:犯罪的严重性、威胁的即时性,以及对逮捕或企图逃跑的抵抗。从表面上看,格雷厄姆的三因素测试并没有考虑被捕者的个人特征是否与警察使用武力有关。认识到格雷厄姆因素是“非详尽的”和“灵活的”,一些下级联邦法院放宽了过度使用武力的检验,以考虑特殊情况。然而,巡回法院之间没有达成共识,最高法院也没有重新审议格雷厄姆标准。30多年过去了,在格雷厄姆治下,法院仍然没有就如何处理个人残疾问题提供足够的指导。本说明主张,根据格雷厄姆所表达的灵活性,应重新制定其三因素测试,以增加受《美国残疾人法》第二章启发的第四个因素,以说明在执法部门在逮捕过程中使用武力的情况下,是否对个人的残疾进行了“合理修改”。在一名警官“合理地应该知道”被捕者有残疾的情况下应用这一标准,促进了一种基本假设,即执法人员在照顾所有残疾方面发挥了积极作用。
{"title":"Reformulating Graham v. Connor’s Excessive Force Test to ADApt for Individuals with Disabilities","authors":"Christiana Prater-Lee","doi":"10.1017/amj.2022.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/amj.2022.5","url":null,"abstract":"Individuals with disabilities are sixteen times more likely to be killed by officers during a law enforcement encounter than other individuals. As the ever-growing list of victims demonstrates, law enforcement violence against individuals with disabilities is a national crisis. Yet, the current test, developed under Graham v. Connor, for whether officers’ use of force is excessive during an arrest considers only three factors: severity of the crime, immediacy of the threat, and resistance to arrest or attempts to flee. On its face, Graham’s three-factor test does not contemplate whether an arrestee’s individual characteristics are relevant to an officer’s use of force. Recognizing that the Graham factors are “non-exhaustive” and “flexible,” some lower federal courts have relaxed the excessive force test to account for particular circumstances. However, there is no consensus among the circuit courts and the Supreme Court has not revisited the Graham test. Over three decades later, courts still do not have sufficient guidance on how to address individual disability under Graham. This Note advocates that in adherence to Graham’s expressed flexibility, its three-factor test should be reformulated to add in a fourth factor inspired by Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act to account for whether “reasonable modifications” of an individual’s disability were made in situations when law enforcement employs force during the course of an arrest. Applying this standard in cases where an officer “reasonably should know” the arrestee has a disability promotes a baseline assumption that law enforcement officers have an active role in accommodating all disabilities.","PeriodicalId":7680,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Law & Medicine","volume":"47 1","pages":"477 - 506"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47530902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Optum-Atrius Transaction: A Model for Reviewing Mid-Sized Health Transactions—In the last decade, consolidation transactions in healthcare have increased drastically.1 Following the financial difficulties of the pandemic, the popularity of vertical mergers and acquisitions at multiple levels of the health care supply chain is likely to continue.2 While larger transactions, which are valued at over $92 million, require notice to theFederal TradeCommission (“FTC”) and theDepartment of Justice (“DOJ”), mid-sized healthcare transactionswhich are valued at less than $92million often do not get special anticompetitive examination.3 Therefore state agencies, which may have “additional legal and administrative frameworks that they can use to review proposed health care transactions for potential anticompetitive harm,” can help protect health care provider markets.4 State attorney generals (“AGs”) may bring suit under state or federal antitrust laws or enjoin a transaction with the FTC or DOJ under Section 7 of the Clayton Act.5 In Massachusetts, there exists theHealth PolicyCommission (“HPC”), an independent state agency established within the Executive Office of Finance andAdministration. TheHPCwas created in 2012 to monitor and control Massachussett’s healthcare spending growth.6 This recent development comment examines the findings of the Massachusetts HPC’s review of the 2021 OptumAtrius transaction to examinewhat factors influence disruption of health care spending goals and how the HPC could serve as a model for other states to follow in evaluating mid-sized healthcare transactions amid increasing trends of consolidation at all levels.
{"title":"The Optum-Atrius Transaction: A Model for Reviewing Mid-Sized Health Transactions","authors":"Minji Kim","doi":"10.1017/amj.2022.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/amj.2022.8","url":null,"abstract":"The Optum-Atrius Transaction: A Model for Reviewing Mid-Sized Health Transactions—In the last decade, consolidation transactions in healthcare have increased drastically.1 Following the financial difficulties of the pandemic, the popularity of vertical mergers and acquisitions at multiple levels of the health care supply chain is likely to continue.2 While larger transactions, which are valued at over $92 million, require notice to theFederal TradeCommission (“FTC”) and theDepartment of Justice (“DOJ”), mid-sized healthcare transactionswhich are valued at less than $92million often do not get special anticompetitive examination.3 Therefore state agencies, which may have “additional legal and administrative frameworks that they can use to review proposed health care transactions for potential anticompetitive harm,” can help protect health care provider markets.4 State attorney generals (“AGs”) may bring suit under state or federal antitrust laws or enjoin a transaction with the FTC or DOJ under Section 7 of the Clayton Act.5 In Massachusetts, there exists theHealth PolicyCommission (“HPC”), an independent state agency established within the Executive Office of Finance andAdministration. TheHPCwas created in 2012 to monitor and control Massachussett’s healthcare spending growth.6 This recent development comment examines the findings of the Massachusetts HPC’s review of the 2021 OptumAtrius transaction to examinewhat factors influence disruption of health care spending goals and how the HPC could serve as a model for other states to follow in evaluating mid-sized healthcare transactions amid increasing trends of consolidation at all levels.","PeriodicalId":7680,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Law & Medicine","volume":"47 1","pages":"523 - 530"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44696690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}