Healthcare Legal Issues Discuss the Impact Federalism Essay

Healthcare Legal Issues

Discuss the impact Federalism has on the regulation of health care delivery; how do the different sources of law as they related to the federal and state governments matter, if at all?

In general, federal regulation of health care delivery would be much more appropriate and efficient than state or local law, at least in so far as major aspects of health care delivery are concerned. That is because state laws vary considerably; that makes it impossible to establish a consistent or uniform standard of health care delivery across state lines. Certainly, there are aspects of health care that are appropriate to regulate at the state or even the local level, but there are others that would be much better to regulate on a national or federal level.

One of the best examples of an aspect of health care delivery that should be regulated federally are elements of necessary health care reform such as a shift from the current fee-for-services model of health care compensation to a results-based model. Another example would be the establishment of the so-called "public option" for health insurance to compete against the private health insurance industry or, in the alternative, federal legislation to limit the amount of profit or the maximum rates or maximum increase in health insurance premiums (Reid, 2009). All of those types of reforms would be impractical to establish at the state level because, among other things, that would simply result in the shifting of the choice of locations of health care institutions, areas of practice of individual health care practitioners, and of the entire private health insurance industry to states with laws that are advantageous to them. By contrast, legislation and regulation at the federal level would establish a uniform system of national standards.

Which entity do you think is in the best position to govern…