HLO Members!

We're going to get together over hearty bagels to talk about the recent HHS waivers of the annual limits and medical loss ratio on "mini-med" insurance plans offered by McDonalds and 30 other employers (estimated 1.4 million employees).  Does this have ramifications for the viability of the PPACA?  Was this anticipated?  How will we address "mini-med" plans in 2014 when the PPACA becomes fully effective?  A recent WSJ article lays out some. of the facts http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703431604575522413101063070.html (We will have hard copies to pass out). 


 Thursday, October 28th in the Health Law Suite library/conference room from 12:00 - 12:45.  Hope you can make it!

Interested in meeting fellow health law attorneys?
Want to network for health law jobs?
Join the Health Law Section of the Houston Bar Association!


Thursday, October 21, 2010
5:30 PM to 8:00 PM


Benjy's
5922 Washington Ave.
Houston, TX 77007
713-868-1131
In the "Wine Room" to the left of the entrance.



Complimentary valet.


Please contact Lisa Helfman at (832) 824-1228 or if you plan to attend or have any questions.


Event is open to both attorneys and law school students/ graduates.

First of all, big thanks to the attorneys who made our career panel a huge success: Professor Jessica Mantel, Dr. Aashish Shah, and Jessica Quinn. 

The next Grand Rounds in the Health Law & Policy Institute will be held next Thursday, October 21 at 12 nooon, instead. Hope to see everybody there.


Also, don't forget to RSVP for the HLO BBQ this Saturday, October 16, to .

HLO is having a BBQ on Saturday, October 16th, from 7:30 PM to 10:30 PM! All members and alumni are cordially invited. Feel free to bring significant others and prospective members. HLO will be providing the main course and drinks. All are encouraged to bring something to share (side dish, special beverage, party game, etc.) Check your emails for location and more information.

Please RSVP to by Friday with number attending.

If you are a member and did not receive an invite, email .

Don't forget about the Practicing Attorney Health Law panel with the Career Development Office: 12 Noon in 144 BLB. Lunch provided to the first 50 attendees. 


Also, HLO will be hosting the next Grand Rounds informal brown bag lunch event in the Health Law and Policy Institute Library at 12 Noon. Topics may include:


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/health/policy/25avandia.html?_r=1&sq=FDA&st=cse  The new FDA - Transparency and Flexibility (News Analysis) -- Avandia and the increasing complex regulatory world
 
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/lawmakers-grill-jj-f-d-a-officials/?scp=2&sq=FDA&st=cse  Lawmakers Grill Johnson & Johnson, FDA Officials -- kids cough syrup "phantom" recall
 
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/f-d-a-panel-rejects-diet-pill-2/?scp=4&sq=FDA&st=cse      FDA Panel Rejects Diet Pill -- "safety" in obese patients
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/health/policy/30fda.html?scp=5&sq=FDA&st=cse   Infant Sleep Positioners Pose Suffocation Risk FDA Says -- 12 deaths in 13 years
 
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/f-d-a-postpones-rule-on-breast-cancer-drug/?scp=6&sq=FDA&st=cse  FDA Postpones Rule on Breast Cancer Drug -- a split breast cancer community
 
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/a-new-name-for-high-fructose-corn-syrup/?scp=10&sq=FDA&st=cse  A New Name for High-Fructose Corn Syrup -- "corn sugars"??
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/business/28pom.html?scp=1&sq=Ftc%20pom&st=cse FTC Calls Health Claims in POM Juice Ads Deceptive -- FTC takes on a health claim -- why?

Thanks to Professor Jessica Roberts for providing the information. Hope to see everybody there!

 

Dr. McCullough will give a talk on an upcoming article regarding the founding story of bioethics. In particular, he asserts that the case for physician paternalism has been greatly overstated historically, and that basing our ethics on the assumption of paternalism has had detrimental effects for the law and the practice of medicine.

Laurence B. McCullough, Ph.D., is the associate director for Education and inaugural holder (since May 2008) of the Dalton Tomlin Chair in Medical Ethics and Health Policy in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Baylor College of Medicine, where is he also professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics.

Join us at 12 PM in 109 BLB. Lunch served to the first 50 attendees.

Every month we'll be featuring a professor from the Health Law and Policy Institute so you can get to know them better. Our first feature is  one of two news additions to the University of Houston Law Center: Professor Jessica Mantel. 

When you ask Professor Jessica Mantel about her new appointment as co-director of the Health Law & Policy Institute at the Law Center, she instantly responds with a beaming smile.  “I’m doing exactly what I want to do – and this is the perfect place to do it,” she says.   Professor Mantel describes herself as a policy wonk, which means that she obsesses about the best ways to deliver and regulate health care in the United States.  Prior to joining the Law Center faculty, Professor Mantel worked for two government agencies in Washington, D.C., most recently as a senior attorney in the Office of the General Counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services.   In that position, she was the lead attorney responsible for advising the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on implementing new prescription drug benefits for Medicare recipients.  “My client was CMS – and it fell to me to not only ensure that CMS complied with the law, but also to complete the due diligence and think through the consequences of various policies the agency was pursuing,” she says.  “But I am more of a ‘big picture’ person, and my work at the Law Center will allow me not only to investigate issues in health care, but also to identify the best solutions.”  Her forthcoming article in the UCLA Law Review (Setting National Coverage Standards for Health Plans Under Healthcare Reform) is a perfect example of the type of research she plans to pursue at the Health Law & Policy Institute.  Her article examines the steps that Congress can take to ensure a fair and transparent process for the development of national coverage standards.  The article is one of the first in a major journal that looks at the “rationing” of health care under the new health care reform law – and she promises that it will not be her last.  “Rationing is a volatile and controversial issue, but most economists and health policy analysts agree that it must be a part of the health-care delivery system in this country.  If rationing will be part of our future, we need to start a serious discussion of how it will be handled.  I hope that my work will help further the debate on the processes we should follow,” she says.  As her research unfolds, she says it may influence how Texas and other states connect with the national health care agenda – and she predicts the Health Law & Policy Institute will be in the thick of the discussions and debates.  “Houston has the largest medical center in the world, and it is populated with people who care about the same issues I care about.   We have a terrific health care faculty at the Law Center, and all of us are working on the cutting edge of health care issues and the law,” she says. 
                                                      
Background note:  Professor Mantel holds a J.D. from the University of Michigan, an M.P.P. from the University of Michigan School of Public Policy, and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.  After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Karen Nelson Moore of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cleveland, and specialized in health law at Ropes & Gray in Boston.