CONTACT: Doug Carlson, College of Medicine(850) 645-1255; [email protected]orChristi Morgan, College of Law(850) 644-2788; [email protected]
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to announce its ruling on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Florida State University’s nationally recognized experts in law and medicine are available to discuss the ramifications of the pending decision.
Among the available experts:
•Paolo Annino, J.D., Ph.D., clinical professor and co-director, FSU Public Interest Law Center: (850) 644-9930; [email protected]As co-director of the law school’s Public Interest Law Center, Annino supervises students who represent children in foster care, juvenile delinquency, health care, special education, disability, social security and criminal law cases. His special interest is health care access for young people and children, and he also works on legal issues involving Medicaid.“There are 50 million uninsured in this country, and the ACA is the right step in trying to address this shameful condition.”
•Les Beitsch, M.D., J.D., associate dean for health affairs at the College of Medicine: (850) 645-1830; [email protected] (“Beit” is pronounced “bite”)Beitsch, previously deputy secretary for the Florida Department of Health and commissioner of health for the state of Oklahoma, focuses on health policy. He recently completed two years of service on an Institute of Medicine committee charged with studying the public health system in a post-health-care-reform world. “I view the ACA as a logical extension of previous jurisprudence related to interstate commerce. It can be orderly and affordable, or it can be impacted adversely by severely short-sighted, narrow Supreme Court intervention.”
•Marshall Kapp, J.D., M.P.H., director, FSU Center for Innovative Collaboration in Medicine and Law: (850) 645-9260; [email protected]Kapp’s teaching and scholarship include attention to health policymaking, including its constitutional implications. He has published recently on legal and policy aspects of the Affordable Care Act in several professional journals. He is prepared to share his opinion about either the correctness of the Supreme Court’s decision that the ACA is an unconstitutional usurpation of congressional power or the serious negative societal ramifications of a decision that affirms the ACA.“Is health care so unique that it justifies its own set of legal rules? If Americans do not have a constitutional right to refuse to purchase an individual health insurance policy, then neither do they have a legally enforceable right to refuse specific socially beneficial medical treatments. For example, they should be subject to certain demonstrably cost-effective medical treatments such as influenza vaccinations, treatment for depression and reduction of cardiovascular disease by taking medicine to control blood pressure and cholesterol levels.”
•Mark B. Seidenfeld, J.D., Patricia A. Dore Professor of Administrative Law at the College of Law: (850) 491-1594; [email protected]Seidenfeld is recognized as one of the country’s leading scholars on federal administrative law and also has expertise in constitutional law. He presented to the National Association of State Legislators last November on the potential implications of what he has called “the ultimate Supreme Court decision.”
•Nat Stern, J.D., John W. & Ashley E. Frost Professor at the College of Law: (850) 644-1801; [email protected]Stern has written many influential articles on constitutional law issues and is regarded as an expert in the area in the national legal community. He teaches constitutional law, American legal history and a Supreme Court role-playing seminar. He can discuss the implications of the ruling for Commerce Clause doctrine and how the choice of president in November could affect the direction of that doctrine.
•Franita Tolson, J.D., assistant professor at the College of Law, (850) 644-7402 or (773) 412-7842; [email protected]Tolson’s scholarship focuses on the areas of constitutional law, election law, legal history and employment discrimination. Her research has been published in leading law reviews, and she has written for or appeared as a commentator for various mass media outlets. She can discuss the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.“Both defenders and opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have attempted to preemptively paint any contrary outcome as a political decision by the court rather than a decision based on law. The truth, however, is far more complicated. The Supreme Court could, within the confines of precedent, determine that the act exceeds congressional authority under the Commerce Clause, or, alternatively, that it is consistent with this authority. It is this wiggle room that opens the court up for accusations of partisanship, even if the court is focused on achieving the right outcome rather than playing into the partisan machinations of the politicians and the public. Because of this, I suspect that one question that we will have to grapple with in the wake of the decision, regardless of outcome, is what this case means for the rule of law and respect for the judiciary as an independent institution, as opposed to what should be our focus — whether the justices came to the right outcome based on the legal precedent as they understood it."
###
RSS