Federal employees health benefits program: miscellaneous changes--Office of Personnel Management. Final rulemaking

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is issuing final regulations which implement a number of miscellaneous changes to the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program regulations. The regulations will improve the administration of the FEHB Program and result in better service to enrollees.     

Medical participation in control of certain open-panel medical prepayment plans: Federal Trade Commission. Request for comment and advance notice of proposed rulemaking

This Notice requests comments on two staff reports dealing with medical participation in control of Blue Shield and certain other open-panel medical prepayment plans and on alternative courses of action that the Commission might take to deal with this subject, one of which might be rulemaking.     

Federal Trade Commission v. Tenet: a retrospective review and analysis

Primarily through a series of interviews with a variety of interested persons, the author analyzes the controversial merger of two hospitals in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, in late 1999. A district court had stopped the merger in 1998; however, the Eighth Circuit overturned the decision the following year, therefore permitting the parties to execute the merger. The Article highlights the effects of, and the market's response to, the merger. Results reveal that in the two years following the merger, none of the parties interviewed believe the merger was favorable. Similarly, parties perceive that the price of care has increased, while the quality of care has not improved. Nonetheless, at the two-year mark, it remains too soon to determine whether the government's concerns in opposing the merger have been justified.     

Private land mobile radio services; amendment of the Commission's rules concerning general eligibility in the industrial radio services: Federal Communications Commission. Final rule

This document adopts a rule amendment to permit the licensing of non-profit corporations and associations of eligible users in the Business and Special Industrial Radio Services in the bands below 512 MHz. The FCC now permits the licensing of non-profit corporations and associations of eligible users in each of the Industrial Radio Services except the Business and Special Industrial Radio Services below 800 MHz and permits it in all Industrial Radio Services including Business and Special Industrial above 800 MHz. The amendment will eliminate this exception.     

Television Food Marketing to Children Revisited: The Federal Trade Commission Has the Constitutional and Statutory Authority to Regulate

The evidence reveals that young children are targeted by food and beverage advertisers but are unable to comprehend the commercial context and persuasive intent of marketing. Although the First Amendment protects commercial speech, it does not protect deceptive and misleading speech for profit. Marketing directed at children may fall into this category of unprotected speech. Further, children do not have the same First Amendment right to receive speech as adults. For the first time since the Federal Trade Commission's original attempt to regulate marketing to children in the 1970s (termed KidVid), the political, scientific, and legal climate coalesce to make the time well-suited to reevaluate the FTC's authority for action. This paper analyzes the constitutional authority for the FTC to regulate television food marketing directed at children as deceptive in light of the most robust public health evidence on the subject.     

Physician agreements to control medical prepayment plans: Federal Trade Commission. Adoption and publication of enforcement policy with respect to physician agreements to control medical prepayment plans

The Federal Trade Commission has adopted, and is publishing with this notice, a statement of enforcement policy with respect to physician agreements to control medical prepayment plans. The statement sets forth the general approach the Commission intends to use in its case-by-case enforcement program for evaluating physician agreements to form, operate, or control such plans and for evaluating the practices of plans that are controlled by a group of physicians.     

The Legitimacy of Judicial Responses to Moral Panic: Perceived vs. Normative Legitimacy

In some instances, the criminal justice system is affected by a moral panic; that is, by an exaggerated social reaction to an assumed threat to moral values. When influenced by moral panic, courts demonize defendants and aggravate punishments. Are such responses legitimate? This article argues that by contrast to legitimate condemnation of criminal conduct, demonizing defendants ought never be legitimate. The legitimacy of aggravating punishment requires distinguishing between the sociological concept of legitimacy (“perceived legitimacy”) and the moral concept (“normative legitimacy”). Aggravation of punishment in response to moral panic might be perceived as legitimate since it expresses public perceptions about the severity of the threat to a social value, even when these perceptions are exaggerated; however, punishments that are proportionate to such a perceived, exaggerated, threat to a social value are unjust and unfair, and therefore are normatively illegitimate. When the panic subsides, courts tend to return to lower levels of punishment. The subsidence of the panic enables one to realize that a gap between perceived and normative legitimacy has been created during the panic. Should and can the gap be bridged retroactively in order to gain full legitimacy? One way to bridge the gap is to grant clemency that will reduce the punishment of defendants whose sentences were exaggerated unduly during the panic. The article proposes a more radical mechanism that allows for sentence re-evaluation in cases of moral panic.     

商业世界Vs.思想王国——以实用性要件为主线的专利制度发展研究

实用性要件自专利制度之滥觞之日发轫,在欧洲旧大陆与美洲新大陆循着异样路径发展,亦不约而同展现专利制度之现实性亦即契合“商业世界”之品格。新技术及产业蓬勃,“思想王国”日益为“商业世界”所侵蚀,以致相异之实用性概念殊途同归。由此专利制度及其实用性似乎去传统日见其远,反顾与思量重在探究专利制度之服务商业世界与兼顾公众利益之衡平,兼及应对之策。     

Multiple-address radio systems, allocation of forty-eight 25 kHz channels in the 900 MHz range; and establishment of a new standard for frequency tolerance in the 952-960 MHz band: Federal Communications Commission. Third notice of proposed rulemaking

In response to a petition, the Commission proposes the reallocation of forty-eight 25 kHz channels in the 928-929 and 952-960 MHz band segments to the Private Operational-Fixed Microwave Service and the Domestic Public Land Mobile Radio Service for distribution automation and wide-area control and repeater operations, respectively. The spectrum from 928 to 929 MHz is presently reserved for Land Mobile. The 952-950 MHz band is currently allocated to the Private Operational-Fixed Microwave Service and the International Control Services.     

Medicaid program; final limitations on aggregate payments to disproportionate share hospitals: Federal fiscal year 1996--HCFA. Notice

This notice announces the final Federal fiscal year (FFY) 1996 national target and individual State allotments for Medicaid payment adjustments made to hospitals that serve a disproportionate number of Medicaid recipients and low-income patients with special needs. We are publishing this notice in accordance with the provisions of section 1923(f)(1)(C) of the Social Security Act and implementing regulations at 42 CFR 447.297 through 447.299. The final FFY 1996 State DSH allotments published in this notice supersede the preliminary FFY 1996 DSH allotments that were published in the Federal Register on May 9, 1996.