OTBS 20600: Culture of Disability

This edition integrates the wide-ranging changes made by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (health reform legislation), as well as other recent developments. It includes the following topics: the Elder Justice Act responding to elder abuse and neglect; criminal background checks of workers who work with older patients; major Medicare changes, such as cost-free annual wellness visits and personalized prevention assessments, end-of-life planning, tax increases on both earned and investment income, increased premiums on higher-income enrollees in Part D, and gradual filling of the Part D "donut hole"; Medicaid spousal impoverishment protection changes; and more.

This Nutshell presents an overview of the major federal disability laws with emphasis on the statutes, regulations, and significant points of substantive and procedural law. The fourth edition includes significant focus on the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), including its 2008 Amendment. Features coverage on constitutional rights; the definition of "disabled"; Rehabilitation Act of 1973; employment discrimination; programs and services; and housing, education, and transportation. Also reviews the many relevant areas of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), including the 2004 Amendments.

This text is designed to help students - both law and undergraduate - achieve a basic understanding of this complex area of the law and provide practitioners with an up-to-date review. The text focuses on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (race, national origin, sex, and religious discrimination), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act as applied to the workplace. The book addresses the method of proving violations, both disparate treatment and disparate impact analysis, including a brief primer of statistical proof, as well as the defenses to the express use of proscribed classifications. Finally, the book provides a quick reference to the complex procedural and remedial provisions of the statutes.

Public policy responses to escalating medical costs and constrained access pose fundamental challenges to health care law. Profound medical advances also generate many ethical dilemmas. This authoritative discussion considers how law and ethics respond to these driving social, economic, and political forces of innovation, crisis, and reform. Topics include health care finance and delivery structures, treatment relationships, facility and insurance regulation, corporate and tax law, refusal of life support, organ donation, and reproductive technologies.

This text captures the key points of the precedents governing student rights and responsibilities relating to attendance, speech, expression, religion, discipline, grades, tests, drugs, search and seizure, the emerging law of social media, i.e., cyberbullying, and the range of procedural due process interests. The book further addresses the range of constitutional rights and protections for teachers as well as employment terms and conditions, including contracts, tenure and potential liabilities.

Updated to reflect key developments through mid-2017, the Nutshell's 11 chapters and 130+ graphics, illustrations, and figures lay out definitive legal issues underlying core public health powers to prevent and control communicable and chronic conditions, as well as injuries and related deaths. It also explores legal routes to counter other public health threats, including tobacco and alcohol use, guns, vehicles, and defective products. Additional chapters center on difficult trade-offs related to public health information surveillance and privacy, commercial speech regulation, zoning and the built environment, and emergency legal preparedness.