In recent decades, biomarkers have become essential in diagnosing disease and assessing patients' responses to therapy. The increasing quantitative rigor and efficiency of these tests have led to the possibility of “personalized medicine.” Despite such ...

The political seas roiled by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have grown more volatile in the 2 years since its passage. Whether it is the constitutionality of the insurance mandate, the economic feasibility of the Medicaid expansion, or controversy over the ...

Although the media and the U.S. public focused primarily on the minimum-coverage requirement, or individual mandate, during the recent oral arguments in the challenges to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) before the Supreme Court, the most important issue ...

Supreme Court oral arguments may reveal the justices' views of fundamental political and social issues — including, in the case of the Affordable Care Act, what it means to ensure liberty and where the proper balance lies between judicial activism and deference to Congress.

In the Douglas case, health care providers and Medicaid patients attacked California laws reducing Medicaid payments, arguing that they violated federal standards and jeopardized patients' health. The Supreme Court punted, sending the case back for further development.

HIV infection is now a chronic, treatable disease, and transmission is readily preventable. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend expanding HIV screening and eliminating unique requirements for informed consent, but not all states have done so.

If the Supreme Court deems the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate unconstitutional, it will consider whether to invalidate other ACA provisions because the mandate cannot be “severed” from them. The ACA's fate may therefore depend on the mandate's severability.

In late March, the Supreme Court will examine the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, potentially producing a landmark decision. The Court will determine whether, in crafting the ACA's individual mandate and Medicaid expansion, Congress exceeded its powers.

New ethics guidelines from the American College of Physicians calling for physicians to practice “parsimonious care” have reignited a debate about the role and responsibility of physicians in addressing problems with health care costs.

Since U.S. kidney-transplant recipients don't benefit from a coherent funding policy for immunosuppressive drugs, thousands of them are at risk for allograft failure and premature death. Ensuring lifetime access to these medications would save lives and money.

The relationship between patients and doctors is at the core of medical ethics, anchoring many important debates in the field. Over the past several decades, this relationship has evolved along three axes — as it is defined in clinical care, research, and society.

In appealing to the Supreme Court, 26 states are arguing that the Affordable Care Act unconstitutionally coerces them into expanding their Medicaid programs. But although states may face a hard choice about participating in Medicaid, that's not a constitutional matter.

The fate of the Affordable Care Act depends on the outcome of four events in 2012: state legislative sessions, the Supreme Court ruling on the law's constitutionality, the application deadline for grants for establishing health insurance exchanges, and the elections.

On December 1, 2011, in Flynn v. Holder, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the ban on selling “bone marrow” that is part of the National Organ Transplantation Act of 1984 does not encompass “peripheral blood stem cells” obtained through apheresis.

The Supreme Court has promised to review not only the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate but also the issue, raised by Florida and 25 other states, of whether the ACA's Medicaid expansion violates the U.S. Constitution.

Those who have legally challenged the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate to obtain health insurance argue that Congress cannot regulate “inactivity.” But Congress does in fact have the power to force purchases.

Moves to protect the copyright of the Mini–Mental State Examination, the standard of care for cognitive screening, have left clinicians at risk of legal action for infringement and distribution and made a new tool, apparently seen as derivative, unavailable.