James F. Blumstein
University Professor of Constitutional Law and Health Law & Policy Director, Vanderbilt Health Policy Center
Voice: (615) 322-3710
Fax: (615) 322-6631
Email: james.blumstein@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Room 256
View curriculum vitae (.pdf)
Links
Media Links
- Harvard Law School Lecture, October 27, 2011
- New York Times - Brawling Over Health Care Moves to Rules on Exchanges
- Testimony to the U.S. House Ways and Means Subcommittee - September 12, 2012
Research Interest(s)
Health law and public policy; constitutional law
Education
M.A. (Economics), L.L.B. and B.A. Yale University
Biography
Jim Blumstein ranks among the nation’s most prominent scholars of health law, law and medicine, and voting rights. He is currently one of 13 University Professors at Vanderbilt; he was the first awarded that title in the law school and the first to receive a second tenured appointment in Vanderbilt Medical School. The director of Vanderbilt’s Health Policy Center, Professor Blumstein has served as the principal investigator on numerous grants concerning managed care, hospital management and medical malpractice. His peers recognized his leadership in health law and policy by electing Professor Blumstein to the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, and he was awarded the Earl Sutherland Prize, which is Vanderbilt’s preeminent university-wide recognition for lifetime scholarly contributions. In 2007, he received the prestigious McDonald-Merrill-Ketcham Memorial Award for Excellence in Law and Medicine from the University of Indiana and delivered the award lecture on hospital-physician joint-venture relationships. Professor Blumstein has been the Olin Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, an Adjunct Professor at Dartmouth Medical School, and a Visiting Professor at Duke Law School and at Duke’s Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs. He has served as Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen’s counsel on TennCare reform and has participated actively in a number of Supreme Court cases, arguing three. A dedicated teacher, Professor Blumstein has received the law school’s student-sponsored Hartman Teaching Award. He joined Vanderbilt’s law faculty in 1970.
Representative Publications
Books
Health Care Law and Policy (2nd edition, Foundation Press, 1998 & 2007 supp.) (co-edited with C. Havighurst & T. Brennan)
Articles
"Enforcing Limits on the Affordable Care Act’s Mandated Medicaid Expansion: The Coercion Principle and the Clear Notice Rule," 2011-2012 Cato Supreme Court Review 67
“Of Doctors and Hospitals: Setting the Analytical Framework for Managing and Regulating the Relationship,” in The Fragmentation of U.S. Health Care: Causes and Solutions 135 (Einer Elhauge ed.)(Oxford University Press 2010) (derived from the McDonald-Merrill-Ketcham Lecture delivered at Indiana University and appearing in the Indiana Health Law Review)
"Medical Malpractice Standard-Setting: Developing Malpractice 'Safe Harbors' As a New Role for QIOs?", 59 Vanderbilt Law Review 1017 (2006)
"The Legal Liability Regime: How Well Is It Doing in Assuring Quality, Accounting for Costs, and Coping with an Evolving Reality in the Health Care Marketplace?" 11 Annals of Health Law 125 (2002)
"Regulatory Review by the Executive Office of the President: An Overview and Policy Analysis of the Legal and Institutional Issues," 51 Duke Law Journal 851 (2001)
"Health Care Reform Through Medicaid Managed Care: Tennessee (TennCare) as a Case Study and a Paradigm," 53 Vanderbilt Law Review 125 (2000) (with F. Sloan)
"Health Care Reform and Competing Visions of Medical Care: Antitrust and State Provider Cooperation Legislation," 79 Cornell Law Review 1459 (1994)
"Defining and Proving Race Discrimination: Perspectives on the Purpose vs. Results Approach from the Voting Rights Act," 69 Virginia Law Review 633 (1983)
"Distinguishing Government's Responsibility in Rationing Public and Private Medical Resources," 60 Texas Law Review 899 (1982)
Presentations
"Is the Obama Health Care Reform Act Constitutional?" lecture at Harvard Law School, October 27, 2011. View presentation slides and video from the lecture. In a related article, Blumstein discusses The Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid-Expansion Mandate, New England Journal of Medicine (2011) (with I. Glenn Cohen) and Medicaid Mandate Is a Troubling Issue, New York Times Blog: Room for Debate (2012). Professor Blumstein filed an amicus brief in support of the position of Florida with the U.S. Supreme Court regarding its challenge to the expanded Medicaid provision.
"The Future of Federalism: State / Federal Relations in an Era of Austerity," The Council on State Governments Virtual Summit of the States 2.0, April 14, 2011
“Constitutional Challenges to Health Reform: The Expanded Medicaid Mandate,” American Enterprise Institute conference, “Who’s In Charge? More Legal Challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” December 6, 2010, Washington, D.C.
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