Health Law as Private Law: Pathology or Pathway

Health Law as Private Law delves into the complex relationship between private law and health care. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of public ordering and state-created rules was evident, yet this work reveals the equally important role of private agreements in shaping health care policy. The volume's five sections – theory and structure, reproductive care, costs and financing, innovation and institutions, contracts and torts – include innovative conceptualizations and approaches to applying private law to health law. Chapters authored by leading experts explore how private law can be utilized to address significant health care and public health problems, and to achieve much-needed health care reform. Comprehensive and timely, Health Law as Private Law opens new pathways that will influence future policy, jurisprudence, and regulation. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

I. Glenn Cohen is the James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law and a Deputy Dean at Harvard Law and the Faculty Director of Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology & Bioethics. He is one of the world's leading experts on the intersection of bioethics and the law, as well as health law. He also teaches civil procedure. He is the author of more than 200 articles and the author, editor, or coeditor of more than twenty books.

Susannah Baruch is the Executive Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. She previously held key leadership roles in nonprofit organizations, academia, and government. Her research focuses on reproductive health law policy and issues surrounding genetics and genomics.

Wendy Netter Epstein is Vincent de Paul Professor of Law at DePaul University College of Law and an expert in health care law and policy, with an emphasis on the financing and delivery of health care, and matters of health equity. She has authored dozens of articles and coauthored Contracts: Law in Action (5th ed).

Christopher Robertson is N. Neal Pike Scholar and Professor of Law and Public Health at Boston University. He is an expert in health law, institutional design, and decision-making. Robertson has been published in JAMA, NEJM, and Science.

Carmel Shachar is Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Health Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School. She previously served as the Executive Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. Shachar is the coeditor of several other volumes including Transparency in Health Care and Disability, Law, Health, and Bioethics.