The role of ERISA preemption in health reform: opportunities and limits.

Legal Solutions in Health Reform is a project funded by The RobeRT Wood Johnson FoundaTion Prepared for The o'neill insTiTuTe FoR naTional and Global healTh laW aT GeoRGeToWn univeRsiTy 600 new Jersey avenue, nW Washington, dC 20001 is the premier center for health law, scholarship and policy. Housed at Georgetown University Law Center, in the heart of the nation's capital, the Institute has the mission to provide innovative solutions for the leading health problems in America and globally—from infectious and chronic diseases to health care financing and health systems. The essential vision for the O'Neill Institute rests upon the proposition that the law has been, and will remain, a fundamental tool for solving critical health problems in our global, national, and local communities. By contributing to a more powerful and deeper understanding of the multiple ways in which law can be used to improve health, the O'Neill Institute hopes to advance scholarship, research, and teaching that will encourage key decision-makers in the public, private, and civil society sectors to employ the law as a positive tool for enabling more people in the United States and throughout the world to lead healthier lives.  Teaching. Georgetown is educating future generations of students who will become – upon executive officers, and leaders in many other private, public, and nonprofit fields of endeavor. The O'Neill Institute helps to prepare graduates to engage in multidisciplinary conversations about national and global health care law and policy and to rigorously analyze the theoretical, philosophical, political, cultural, economic, scientific, and ethical bases for understanding and addressing health problems.  Scholarship. O'Neill supports world-class research that is applied to urgent health problems, using a complex, comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and transnational approach to go beyond a narrow vision of health law that focuses solely on health care as an industry or as a scientific endeavor.  Reflective Problem-Solving. For select high-priority issues, the O'Neill Institute organizes reflective problem-solving initiatives in which the Institute seeks to bridge the gap between key policymakers in the public, private, and civil society sectors and the intellectual talent and knowledge that resides in academia.