HS 3101 – Health Care Law
Week 1:
What is Health Law?
Health:
Biomedical health –
- Health care primarily uses this: blood tests, urine sample, etc.
- Normal physical state but what is defined as a normal state of health? Lack of diversity
in definition of normal
- Absence of physical disease
Behavioural health –
- Lifestyle choices: exercise, smoking
Socio-environmental –
- External forces influencing health: food advertisements promoting greater
consumption, education (greater means and information), jobs and exposure for
impoverished groups
Wellness:
Not the absence of something (disease, illness, sickness, disability)
- Disease
- Illness
- Sickness
- Disability: Obesity (socially, physically) Are disabled people unhealthy?
Health Definitions:
WHO 1948: A complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the
absence of disease.
WHO 1986: …ability to identify and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or
cope with environment.
Week 2:
Introduction to Law
What is Law?
A framework or blueprint which sets standards, regulates interactions
3 Ps: persons, property (lecture recording), promises (contract)
4th? Populations (public as a whole)
All laws are rules but not all laws are rules
Philosophical Basis:
Natural law – based on objective moral principles discovered by natural reason (historically,
based in religion)
Positivism – whatever the ruler says (legislation)
Legal Realism – what the court/society says (is the law the law if it’s not enforced?)
Law is the body of rules that can be enforced by the courts or other government agencies.
How does the law work?
Categories of Law:
Sources of Law: