According to an early projection by Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, “2020 [was set to] see a record level of election-related litigation.” That prediction was made long before the COVID-19 crisis left the nation scrambling to adapt to the realities of election season in the midst of a pandemic. In the recent weeks, a flurry of legal battles have erupted across the nation—in Nevada, Oklahoma, Arizona, Virginia, Florida, and various other states—over voting rights, absentee ballot requirements, and vote-by-mail protocol.
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The PPACA established and mandated a standard minimum for care, regulated health coverage practices and entities, and expanded public Medicare and Medicaid programs. The statute further established a legislative precedent that has been resoundingly evoked by the healthcare policy platforms of candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden over a decade later. At the same time, the PPACA has proven remarkably controversial, drawing criticism for its emphatic incentivization of public healthcare at the state level and mandation of coverage at the individual level. As evidenced by the dozens of consequential lawsuits brought before the Roberts Court as a result of the PPACA, the future of universal healthcare remains legally contentious.
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In March 2019, Purdue Pharma reached a $270 million settlement with the State of Oklahoma, amid claims that the pharmaceutical conglomerate knowingly exacerbated the opioid crisis by overinflating the number, magnitude, and duration of opiate prescriptions in pursuit of profit. With fifteen hundred open litigations against Purdue Pharma, including forty-five cases brought by state prosecutors, the case provided critical insight into the strategies adopted by both the state and Purdue.
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