Health Care – Page 21 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

A Decade-Old Statute Pays Dividends for REIT Investors and Their Attorneys

Post author:Stephen Boyett
Post published:December 4, 2009
Post category:Business Regulation Health Care

Perhaps real estate investors and their attorneys have reason to be cautiously optimistic: economic reports released this week indicate signs of life in the real estate market. As reported by the Associated Press, the National Association of Realtors saw increases in pending home sales for the ninth straight month. And for the first time in six months, construction spending saw an increase. Optimists say these numbers, in conjunction with recent reports that home prices are climbing, indicate long-term recovery for both the residential and commercial real estate sectors.

Yet many analysts argue that these spikes are temporary. The growth in construction spending amounted to a measly 0.04%, and the rise in pending sales contracts over the last nine months is attributable to the homebuyer tax credit, which the Obama Administration and Congress recently extended.

I suppose time will tell which analysis is correct. But while commentators continue to debate, real estate investors have shifted their focus from traditional residential and commercial endeavors to a sector less affected by the downturn: healthcare properties.

Is Health Care a Human Right?

Post author:Lisa J. Laplante
Post published:November 2, 2009
Post category:Health Care Human Rights International Law & Diplomacy

As Congress enters the final stretch in pushing forward a health care reform bill, I have been struck by the fact that during the ongoing debate very few people seem to pose the question of whether access to health care constitutes a human right. Yet, in many countries around the world, this perspective forms the starting point of their national debates—and this consensus inevitably directs their public policy on universal health care.

For example, while in Peru I received a grant from the Ford Foundation to conduct research on the right to mental health for survivors of the country’s internal armed conflict. In the course of the study, I interviewed many government officials, advocates from non-governmental organizations and ordinary citizens. None of these people questioned the basic premise of my study which was that health is a human right, as enshrined in international treaties such as the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

Article 12 of the ICESCR provides that “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.” The Covenant has been ratified by 160 countries in the world, but not the United States. The 1946 Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes that the right to health is a fundamental right “without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.” Significantly, the United Nations General Assembly (composed of representatives from 192 member countries adopted a resolution in 2003 reaffirming the right to health.

CST and Health Care

Post author:Richard M. Esenberg
Post published:September 23, 2009
Post category:Health Care Religion & Law

I’ve been guesting at PrawfsBlawg this month and, inspired by a paper that I am in the process of completing about subsidiarity and the response to the economic crisis, have posted about the importance of encouraging decentralization in decision making, including in health care reform.

Writing at Mirror of Justice, Rob Vischer responds, arguing that health care is different, perhaps falling into that category – identified by John Paul II in Centesimus Annus – of the “needs and common goods that cannot be satisfied by the market system.”

I am in partical agreement. There is nothing about health care that, in and of itself, frustrates the operation of markets. It is not a natural monopoly and there are no intrinsic externalities or “tragedies” of the commons.

The problem, it seems to me, is that health care is like food. There are many goods that people can do without, but some are necessary for survival. We are reluctant to allow people to starve and we don’t want to simply allow those who get sick to die.

This does, I think, require public and private intervention in the market. My suggestion is that considerations of subsidiarity suggest that increases in subsidies may be preferable to increases in centralized control of the provision of services.