Abstract

The American public has increasingly identified health care as a key issue of concern. In order to address the multiple problems relating to the access and affordability of health care, President Obama and federal lawmakers across the political spectrum continue to call for major health reform. In any debate on health reform, a predictable set of complex policy, management, economic, and legal issues is likely to be raised. Due to the diverse interests involved, these issues could lead to a series of high-stakes policy debates. Therefore, it is critical that advocates of reform strategies anticipate such issues in order to decrease the likelihood that legally resolvable questions become barriers to substantive health reform. In an effort to frame and study legal challenges and solutions in advance of the heat of political debate, the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have crafted the “Legal Solutions in Health Reform” project.