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Health law emerged as a defined area of study and specialty practice in the late 1970s. Its robust growth coincided with both dissatisfaction with existing common law structures that were deferential to the profession and a massive change in the role of federal administrative agencies as these agencies began to assert more aggressive regulatory authority, supported by the courts. It may not be surprising, then, that substantive health law today is so intertwined with the administrative system; but is it more than mere coincidence, or is there something about the health care enterprise that particularly suits a regulatory approach? This conference will look at the nature of contemporary health care and health law and ask whether health policymakers and health lawyers are using the optimal tools to enhance the health care system or whether they are simply relying on a close-in-age and arguably domineering sibling. |
