Question

• Interpret the role that common law has played in health care in the United States. Assess the level at which common law has impacted overall decisions related to healthcare policy. Provide two (2) specific examples to support your rationale.
• Differentiate between checks and balances in the separation of power. Specify two (2) examples related to health care from Arkansas government.

Answer 1

Role of the common law in case of health care

When courts are called upon to resolve a legal dispute in an area in which no statutory law applies, the court must use what other courts - or the same court - have previously used in similar disputes. These are referred to as precedents and they become laws in themselves. The principle in the use of precedents is that a past decision must be respected by a court when it next confronts the same question. Common law consists of legal precedent as found in the decisions of the most authoritative courts.

Checks and Balances

separation of powers is a model of government in which different parts of the government are in charge of different tasks; in the United States, these parts are known as the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. Checks and balances is a means of trying to ensure that these three parts of the government stay equal and that one does not try to take over another.   

Separation of powers was first introduced as a government model in ancient Greece and was used largely in the Roman republic. Under this Government model, the state is divided into separate and independent entities. The normal separation of branches is into executive, a legislature, and judiciary. The legislative branch makes the laws, the executive branch enforces and carries out the laws to the public, and the judicial branch interprets the laws. Interestingly, not only does each branch have a certain power, each branch has a certain power over the other branch. This is done to keep them balanced and to prevent one from getting too much control. This is known as “Checks and Balances.”

The concept of checks and balances comes from the United States Constitution. The different branches of government check each other’s power so that no branch has more power than the other. An example would be if the legislative branch wants to pass a law, they first present it as a bill. They would send it to the executive branch, otherwise known as the president/presidential office. If the president doesn’t like it or determines that it is unconstitutional, then he will veto it. It would take a 2/3rd vote in Congress for the bill to override the president’s veto.
The big difference between the separation of powers and checks and balances is a separation of powers divides the government into three powers, the legislative, which is composed of the house of