Addiction and Responsibility: An Introduction

Law and Philosophy -     

Directors' duty of care to monitor information systems in HMOs: some lessons from the Oxford Health Plan

This paper examines the legal and strategic issues raised by the use of information systems in health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and other managed care organizations. Given the critical nature of information systems to an HMO's business success and regulatory compliance, the large financial investment HMOs make in their systems, and the widely publicized concerns over the year 2000 "millennium bug" problem, information systems are appropriately a matter of concern to an HMO's board of directors. The recent experience of Oxford Health Plans, Inc. offers a case study in the apparent failure of the directors to monitor adequately the in-house development of an information system. The systems disaster which this corporation suffered in 1997 led to a dramatic drop in stock price, from which the company has yet to recover, as well as intense scrutiny by state and federal regulators and countless shareholder derivative actions against the directors. Corporate directors are subject to the fiduciary duty of care. Despite statutes in some states requiring directors to act prudently, state courts almost always apply the standard of gross negligence. As a result, even when directors act without due deliberation in their decision, it is rare that a court will find them to have failed in their duty of care. The business and regulatory community may find otherwise, however, when directors fail to evaluate information systems options carefully and the business suffers as a result.     

Industry, occupation, and disability insurance beneficiary work return.

This article uses the New Beneficiary Data System to describe the first job held after award of Disability Insurance benefits, in terms of occupation and industry. It examines work activity within sectors of employment, and looks at the issues of whether work return in certain industries and occupations varies according to the demographic characteristics of the beneficiaries. The article also presents data on sector-specific employer accommodations that can aid in sustained work return. Postentitlement work was fairly evenly distributed across occupational and industrial sectors. Persons with higher levels of educational attainment were found to be in white-collar employment sectors. There were noticeable differences in the availability of employer accommodations across postentitlement occupations and industries.     

Market failure,government failure,and the private supply of public goods: The case of climate-controlled walkway networks

Two opposing models of public-goods undersupply are those of “market failure” and “government failure”. Empirical work on the relative explanatory power of these two frameworks has been limited by the scarcity of acceptable data. The case of climate-controlled walkways in major urban cores is a rare instance where such difficulties can be overcome. We investigate the supply of CCWs in 55 large city-cores in North America. We find that (1) CCW networks are well-supplied by market forces, when (2) such forces are not frustrated by government policy. We also find evidence that (3) rules-based regimes dominate discretion-based regimes. These results are consistent with the position that the “government-failure” paradigm is a viable alternative to the traditional “market failure” paradigm.     

The Needs and Financial Problems of Small and Rural Localities: The Case of West Virginia

The areas of Public Finance and Financial Management present potential problems for small and rural local governments. Responses from a survey of West Virginia local public officials were used to examine the severity of these two issues. Both issues were thought to be of equal importance Instead, the findings showed that Public Finance issues rated very high while Financial Management issues rated very low. Potential influences, such as type of locality, professionalism, and metropolitan area status, fail to explain the differences. Thus, it is concluded that for small and rural localities, Public Finance issues are more important than Financial Management issues