Patients as Consumers: Courts, Contracts, and the New Medical Marketplace
Hall, Mark A. & Schneider, Carl E.
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Most recently cited by8
- 2023NOLAN v. LABORATORY CORPORATION OF AMERICA HOLDINGS M.D.N.C.
- 2020Joyce D. Higgs v. Costa Crociere S.P.A. Company 11th Cir.
- 2015Bowden v. Medical Center, Inc. Ga.
- 2012Allen v. Clarian Health Partners, Inc. Ind.
- 2011Melo v. Allstate Insurance D. Vt.
- 2010King v. Willmett Cal. Ct. App.
- 2010Law v. Griffith Mass.
- 2010Martinez v. Milburn Enterprises, Inc. Kan.
Counts reflect decisions in the CiteLaw corpus and may lag very recent opinions.
Abstract
The persistent riddle of health-care policy is how to control the costs while improving the quality of care. The riddle's oncepromising answer-managed care-has been politically ravaged, and consumerist solutions are now winning favor This Article examines the legal condition of the patient-as-consumer in today's health-care market. It finds that insurers bargain with some success for rates for the people they insure. The uninsured, however, must contract to pay whatever a provider charges and then are regularly charged prices that are several times insurers'pricesa nd providers' actual costs.
Perhaps because they do not understand the healthcare market, courts generally enforce these contracts. This Article proposes legal solutions to the plight of the patient-as-consumer and asks what that plight tells us about market solutions to the health-care quandary.