Citation
Pande, V. (2014), "The changing healthcare landscape in the United States as a result of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010", International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, Vol. 8 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPHM-07-2014-0038
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
The changing healthcare landscape in the United States as a result of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010
Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, Volume 8, Issue 3
Our third issue this year is a Healthcare Law Special Issue which features five works from authors in the USA and Puerto Rico which discuss the changing US healthcare landscape as a result of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (colloquially lumped together as “Obamacare”). The collective effects of this legislation on the insurance, pharmaceutical and healthcare markets remain difficult to gauge, as many of the provisions outlined by these two acts have come to fruition in just the past few years; such outcomes may not be fully realized and measurable for quite some time, and perhaps not until all of the requirements of such are totally and completely implemented. An example being the law’s well-defined process of closing the Medicare Part D coverage gap (also known as the “doughnut hole”), scheduled to be completed by 2020.
This issue begins with a research paper authored by Juan Sosa Varela of Universidad del Turabo, titled “An International and Comparative Study of Perceived Justice in Mexican, Puerto Rican and Spanish Hospitals”. The study explores patients’ perceived injustice in response to negative service encounters, such as negative emotions, and the implications of such for service providers when a given encounter is not handled satisfactorily. Data used in this empirical analysis are derived from the results of 937 encounters from self-administered questionnaires obtained from Spanish-speaking hospitals in the three countries. Descriptive research design methodology is used and findings are categorized into three different justice dimensions (distributional, interactional and procedural). The results of this investigation reveal that differences do exist between the three countries with relation to perceived justice in a negative hospital service encounter. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that when such negative encounters are perceived as handled unfairly, the hospital–patient relationship suffers and as a result, the patient may pursue care at a different facility. Customer turnover can be detrimental, given that it is less costly to retain a current customer than to find a new one to serve.
The second article of this issue is a paper by the guest editor, Vivek Pande of the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse entitled “A Comparative Study of Reciprocity in International Physician Licensing”, which discusses the ease of mobility of physicians who wish to practice medicine in different countries. This paper outlines the regulations that would apply if US physicians wished to practice medicine in eight foreign nations: China, India, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Israel and Australia. This comparative study found that obtaining licensure to practice in India proves to be more or less impossible for US physicians. China was found to be the second most difficult nation to obtain licensure, followed by a moderate amount of difficulty in the United Kingdom, Germany and Denmark, while the other nations Australia, Israel and the Philippines proved to be completely reciprocal. The findings from this study provide a starting point for further research into policy changes and requirements to facilitate a more reciprocal relationship for healthcare providers in the USA who desire to practice medicine in other countries.
Our third selection for this issue is a research paper by P. Sergius Koku of Florida Atlantic University which examines legal issues related to the advertising of medicine and medical devices in the USA. Titled “The Learned Intermediary Doctrine: The Case of Advertising Medicine and Medical Devices in the USA”, this research paper examines the impact which the Learned Intermediary Doctrine (LID) has on the Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) marketing and advertising campaigns of pharmaceutical companies. With the LID being one of the least discussed pieces of legislation in marketing and management literature, this analysis seeks to bring this issue to the forefront, as many lawsuits have stemmed from negligence and unreliable or misrepresentative advertisements. Pharmaceutical firms should take heed of the LID in relation to their marketing plans and strategies.
The fourth paper entitled “The False Claims Act: A Review and Policy Recommendations”, by Mary Schramm, Jennifer Herbst and Angela Mattie of Quinnipiac University, examines the impact of the False Claims Act (FCA) on the pharmaceutical industry. The FCA has been applied against pharmaceutical companies by the US government to combat marketing fraud including kickbacks, improper pricing and off-label promotion. The authors review FCA settlements and challenges facing the industry to identify the motivation behind firms’ alleged fraudulent activity and suggest possible methods the pharmaceutical industry could use to avoid such legal problems in the future.
The issue’s final selection “The Effect of Affordable Care Act on the Competition in the Post Patent Ethical Drug Market” is authored by Yu Yu of Georgia State University. This article discusses the financial impact which the ACA has on the pharmaceutical drug market, as current projections indicate an additional 10 to 35 billion dollars in profit for pharmaceutical companies. The structurally modelled study examines the supply and demand of ethical drug markets close to patent expiration and identifies factors which influence the usage of brand name and generic drugs. Findings from policy simulation analysis indicate that these identified factors, increases in size of price-insensitive segment, reduction in price sensitivity in the price-sensitive segment and the change in people’s attitudes towards generics along with increased coverage and reductions in out-of-pocket payments, contribute to the predicted increase in profit for pharmaceutical firms.
I hope you will enjoy reading these articles. And we welcome further high-quality contributions from both academics and legal and medical practitioners on healthcare law-related topics.
Vivek Pande