With the release of the dismal CBO report on the American Health Care Act, the administration is playing defense. Secretary Price says the report is “just not believable” because it does not take into account the regulatory changes that he intends to make to bring down the cost of coverage. It also “ignored completely the […]
Today the most important book in administrative law is one that was written a half-century ago—but not by Kenneth Culp Davis, or Walter Gellhorn, or James Landis, or the other legends of administrative law. The author was a scientist, Thomas S. Kuhn, and the book is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Everyone interested in administrative […]
A bill is moving through Congress—the Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act—that would effectively allow businesses to require their employees to disclose lots of sensitive medical data, including their genetic information. It’s an ugly piece of legislation. Explaining why is tricky, but bear with me. * * * The point of workplace wellness programs is to […]
As countless commentators have observed, President Trump’s first months in office have been marked by the issuance of significant executive orders and other executive actions aimed at undoing or reforming the work of his predecessor, and charting a new policy course forward. In that respect, Trump was not a break from recent experience, but a continuation […]
Citing President Trump’s January 20 Executive Order, the IRS has altered the reporting mechanism for “minimum essential coverage” under the Affordable Care Act. A Form 1040 taxpayer, for example, had to check a box on line 61 to confirm coverage. If a taxpayer did not do so, the form was rejected. Because the “executive order […]
Earlier this month the Center for the Study of the Administrative State hosted a terrific public policy conference on the Hill entitled The Time for Regulatory Reform in Congress. We discussed most of the legislative regulatory reform proposals pending in Congress as well as a number of additional ideas that scholars have suggested. Video of the panels and […]
The D.C. Circuit decided three cases — and the NLRB lost in two of them. Throw in the NLRB’s loss last week and it has been a rough stretch for the agency. In ABM Onsite Services – West, Inc. v. NLRB, Judge Griffith — joined by Judges Srinivasan and Millett — addressed whether workers who […]
Now that Republicans have finally released their alternative to Obamacare, I’ve got an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times encouraging California and other blue states to take action to protect themselves. [T]he Republican bill would set chaos in motion because it would immediately eliminate the individual mandate — that is, the tax penalty imposed on […]
For Vox’s Big Idea series, I’ve adapted my essay, Federalism and the End of Obamacare. Here’s a taste: Republicans may talk the talk of devolving health care policy to the states, but that’s not what the American Health Care Act does. Instead, it starves health reform of the funding upon which it depends. Most significantly, […]
Last week the editors of the University of Pennsylvania Law School’s RegBlog announced that they are changing RegBlog’s name to The Regulatory Review. As far as I’m concerned, this is a very welcome change. RegBlog is a go-to source for scholars and practitioners of administrative law and regulation, but it really isn’t a blog, at […]
Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided Beckles v. United States. The case involved a challenge to the federal sentencing guidelines. Section 4B1.1 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines prescribes a sentencing enhancement for certain criminal defendants if the offense of conviction is a “crime of violence.” At the time of Beckles’s conviction, the guideline defined “crime of […]
As one of the revenue raisers to offset the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act, Congress added Section 7701(o) to the tax code. That provision, which has nothing to do with health care, codifies the “economic substance doctrine” created by the federal district courts and appellate courts. Generally speaking, under the doctrine, the lower […]
As I predicted in last month’s SSRN post, with the Spring law review submission cycle upon us we’re starting to see some really terrific new papers being posted to SSRN. Here is the February 2017 edition of the most-downloaded recent papers (those announced in the last 60 days) from SSRN’s U.S. Administrative Law eJournal, which […]
I don’t know much — or, rather, really anything — about military strategy. And I suspect that is true for a great many judges. Nonetheless, the judiciary often invokes the language of war. Solicitor Generals are addressed as General So-and-So. Judges speak of “soldiering on” and “barrages.” But perhaps my favorite military expression used by […]
If the first blog post by Susan Rose-Ackerman is any indication, the new Admin Law Blog (on comparative administrative law) should be really terrific. From the welcome post: Welcome to the Admin Law Blog! This is a forum for the discussion of ideas and developments of interest to scholars of administrative law across the common law world. It […]