2007 Spring, Pg. 4. Introduction.

New Hampshire Bar Journal

2007.

2007 Spring, Pg. 4.

Introduction

New Hampshire Bar JournalSpring 2007, Volume 48, No. 1Health Care & the LawIntroductionThe articles in this issue of Bar Journal, "Health care & the Law" illustrate the important relationship between policymaking and the law. Initially this issue was titled, "Health Care Law," but that title seemed too confining, suggesting a narrow focus on a single legal niche. Instead the articles in this issue of Bar Journal offer multiple perspectives on the broader issues of the interaction of our health care and legal systems. Thanks go to Suzanne Foster, who launched this enterprise while working for the legal department at the Elliot Health System before relocating to Boston, and Michael DeLucia, chair of the Bar Journal Editorial Advisory Board, who once again capably steered the issue into port.

Andrew Eills leads off with an article on the "Federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2006," a major part of which focuses on combating fraud in federal and state-funded health insurance programs that are among our largest government programs and have a huge impact on hospitals' income and physicians' livelihoods. Eills' analysis covers, among other topics, the interplay between federal and state law in encouraging "whistleblowers" who may detect fraud conducted by others in the organizations in which they work. Eills does not overlook discussion of the broader aims of these laws, which should concern all of us - curbing the high cost of healthcare.

Speaking of costs, Leslie Ludtke and Tyler Brannen of the New Hampshire Insurance Department, conduct a guided tour of the complicated workings of healthcare pricing, and the valiant efforts by some to develop a means of comparing the "prices" charged by various health organizations for the same procedures. This work, clearly a work-in-progress, is in furtherance of the cause of making healthcare more "consumer-driven." Again, the ultimate aim is slowing the inflation in the cost of health care.

The next series of articles represent a more traditional focus for Bar Journal:

- Attorneys David Wolowitz and Jeanmarie Papelian analyze the recent Berg case, a decision that challenges old notions of the privilege of confidentiality between therapists and patients, and, even more profoundly, the rights of parents to make decisions on behalf...