Lynette Martins

Abstract Health insurance companies are having a moment in the United States. Their moment involves widespread public objections to their seemingly random and increasing willingness to deny coverage and reimbursement to insureds. These denials are in large part not part of a program to improve health coverage but, rather, to reduce insurance companies’ expenses and, in turn, increase their profits. There is broad consensus that something has to change. The public demands it. Bipartisan groups of senators and representatives have investigated it. Even the health care industry acknowledges that something needs to change. To actually make the health care system better requires more than easy or simplistic solutions. A long-term solution requires completely rethinking the way the United States provides health care. But while policymakers struggle to craft such a fundamental revision of the health care industry, denials by health insurance companies continue to hurt individuals. Although this Article does not provide a comprehensive rethinking of the health care industry, it does propose a relatively simple interim policy that will ameliorate the problem of health insurance companies unnecessarily denying health coverage: an excess profits tax imposed on health insurance companies. While the putative purpose of insurance companies is to protect policyholders from unexpected and ruinous financial losses, internally, insurance companies function to earn a profit for their shareholders. To the extent an insurance company denies a claim—or even delays payment on that claim—it has increased its profits. The company, thus, has two competing incentives: On the one hand, its business involves paying for health care, but on the other, it is designed to provide a return to its shareholders. While it cannot ignore paying for policyholders’ health care, a health insurance company will likely face steep pressure to prioritize profits. Even though there is debate over whether shareh…

I'm thrilled to announce that my most recent article, Delay, Deny, Tax, was just published on the Emory Law Journal Online! Abstract below, and, if it piques your interest, the whole thing is here: scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj-online/54/

www.usatoday.com/story/specia...

New York Courts Should Reject Texas’s Attempt to Enforce its Abortion Ban Beyond its Borders Precedent supports the refusal to enforce out-of-state civil judgments that punish an individual in the name of protecting the public.

New from me in @statecourtreport.org @brennancenter.org:

Because Texas’s default judgment against Dr. Carpenter aims to punish her for the protection of public morality & future pregnant patients, embryos & fetuses, NY courts aren’t obligated to recognize it.

statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

Case linked here : pacificlegal.org/wp-content/u...

California doctorate nurses can’t use ‘doctor&#… A California federal judge has ruled that nurses with doctorates do not have the right to call themselves doctors. Here is what to know: 1. The case…

Interesting turf case on the use of “doctor/Dr” for doctorate nurses

www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regula...

Flagging this new TFAH report for other health policy/politics syllabi-updaters

www.tfah.org/wp-content/u...

“Beneficiaries in EDs of private equity hospitals experienced 7.0 additional deaths per 10 000 visits after acquisition relative to control (13.4% increase from a raw baseline of 52.4 deaths per 10 000; P = 0.009)”

Hospital Staffing and Patient Outcomes After Private Equity Acquisition | Annals of Internal Medicine Background: After private equity acquisition, hospitals may experience changes in staffing with implications for patients. Objective: To examine hospital staffing and patient outcomes in emergency dep...

www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/...

New AI system could accelerate clinical research MIT researchers developed an interactive, AI-based system that enables users to rapidly annotate areas of interest in new biomedical imaging datasets, without training a machine-learning model in adva...

news.mit.edu/2025/new-ai-...

Latest 'Bluebook' has 'bonkers' rule on citing to artificial intelligence Updated: If you are unsure about how and when to cite content generated by artificial intelligence, a new citation rule is unlikely to clear up the confusion, according to experts who spoke with LawSites.

www.abajournal.com/news/article...

Amazing work!! Love this!!

If A.I. Can Diagnose Patients, What Are Doctors For? Large language models are transforming medicine—but the technology comes with side effects.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Now out in print -- my essay with some thoughts on science and democracy in public health: repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcont... .

AI-designed viruses are here and already killing bacteria Can AI create a life form? These “generative” genomes are a start

www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/17/1...

No Adjudication Using the complete record of all federal civil docket sheets for cases filed in a two-year period, recently made available by the SCALES-OKN project, we find that most cases that enter the federal sy...

If you want some descriptive statistics of litigation in the federal courts, my co authored article providing them is out in JELS!
doi.org/10.1111/jels...

Secretary Kennedy’s Vaccine Skepticism Is Misplaced: Try Cancer Drugs Instead | Health Affairs Forefront HHS has a tremendous opportunity to ensure that both government and private insurers are paying for oncology treatments demonstrating clinically significant improvements in overall survival or quality of life.

“To date, the administration has appeared to overlook the area of oncology drugs. The grand irony of Kennedy targeting vaccines is that he risks undermining an area in which FDA has accomplished some of its best work.” @medlawdan.bsky.social
www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/f...

And now sharing a draft of my Frankel Lecture: COVID and the Great Retrenchment. Not a happy story. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Hey Health Law Folks! Are you, or someone you know, looking to join a fabulous group of scholars? GSU Law invites entry and lateral candidates to apply for a tenure-track position in Health Law! /1

facultycareers.gsu.edu/postings/5807

Hi again! 👋 Now excited to be publishing this article with Wash. U. L. Rev. in 2026. Still getting a draft ready for SSRN but happy to email it if you'd like to provide early feedback!

My new paper, The Crisis of Appropriations Law. Very much a draft -- and perhaps a little too timely. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Really enjoyed reading this article, “The Craze for Legal Proceedings”: Another look at Schloendorff v New York Hospital in which Prof Paul Lombardo (GSU law) recontemplates the origins of the informed consent doctrine. scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcont...

Explaining COVID-19 Vaccines Access in 2025-2026 I send a version of this to my faculty a few days ago, and since I'm still getting questions, I revised it to be not California specific and am posting it, hoping it helps: I've been getting a lot of...

I wrote a primer on access to COVID-19 right now. It's too long for here, so I put it as a Google Doc and it can be found here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Want to come join me as the next Jaharis Faculty Fellow in health law and IP? Apply for the AY 2026-2027 cycle!

academics.depaul.edu/faculty-jobs...

And one of the solutions will be…to design a bot that protects you from this. 🙃

This was my exact response when I read it.

>>Dr. Robert H. Lustig is an endocrinologist, a professor emeritus of peds at UCSF. He is absolutely not hawking “liquid pearls” with dubious claims about weight loss.
Instead, someone has used AI to make a video that imitates him and his voice — all without his knowledge, let alone consent.<<

If you've used Google Notebook, then you will be familiar with the concept as its similar but much better. Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

In this episode, the hosts explore opportunities for learning through podcasts. If you want a good laugh, fast fwd to about the 15 min mark and listen to what they're hoping to accomplish. As an educator, I absolutely love the idea!

MCP UI, Crime Podcasts, Nano-Banana, Qwen Image Edit & Google AI Announcements - EP99.14 Podcast Episode · This Day in AI Podcast · 08/22/2025 · 1h 15m

If you're interested in AI, give this podcast a listen, I stumbled upon this gem -arguably one of the most entertaining (and interesting!) podcasts out there. And they're Aussie.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Texas Law Academic Fellowships We are delighted to announce the launch of the Texas Law Academic Fellowships program.  The program supports individuals who are committed to obtaining an appointment as a tenure-track member of a law...

Texas Law has a new academic fellowship program. Please share with any aspiring legal academics!

(The first fellow started this summer and I can say the level of mentorship, support, and inclusion of fellows is exceptional)