Call for Papers
University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review
Choices and Consequences: Health Policy and the ACA
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review is pleased to announce a call for papers for its 2014 Symposium, on policy aspects of the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (together, the ACA), to be held on Friday, Feb. 28, 2014.
The ACA is the most significant change to health care law since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. The act’s constitutionality was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 2012, with the limitation that states could not be penalized by losing their federal Medicaid funding for refusing to expand Medicaid under the ACA.
As a result, states are approaching ACA compliance in various ways. Some have decided to expand their Medicaid programs as anticipated in the ACA. Others are opting not to participate in coverage expansion. Still others, such as Arkansas, are crafting alternative approaches to expanding healthcare coverage. Arkansas has decided to pursue a unique (for now) option–accepting federal money originally designated for Medicaid expansion under the ACA but seeking a federal waiver to use these funds to buy private insurance in the coming marketplaces for about a quarter of a million low-income Arkansans. Arkansas has received federal approval to proceed with its plan for the present.
The Law Review seeks papers on national and state health policy aspects of the expansion of healthcare coverage, whether through Medicaid expansion and/or other options. Papers could focus on such topics as how the Supreme Court decision politicized implementation; legal aspects of such topics as state choices; state- or federally-run marketplaces or partnership agreements; race, age and gender issues relating to insurance coverage; and aspects of Arkansas’s or other states’ plans. Papers may also address non-Medicaid issues associated with the ACA, such as the interface between the ACA and state healthcare laws.
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review will publish articles from the symposium in volume 36, which is slated for publication in the spring of 2014. Authors should submit an abstract and a cover letter to Sydney Brown, Symposium Editor, at slbrown4@ualr.edu. The deadline for submissions of article proposals is Friday, Oct. 11, 2013; finished articles will be due at the time of the symposium. Please feel free to email Ms. Brown with any questions.
