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The HMO system is often praised for cutting runaway costs. It is supposed to act as a powerful market force to stop greedy doctors and hospitals from treating patients like pi-atas, to be cut open for profit. Health Against Wealth reveals that when you are confronting cancer, heart disease, or psychiatric illness, when you face a medical emergency or your child requires complex pediatric surgery, all those cost-saving rules and artful ways of keeping doctors frugal can turn against you. Wall Street Journal reporter George Anders explains why " managed care " is so appealing to employers and insurers and how HMO bureaucrats can thwart necessary, even life-saving treatment under the guise of cost efficiency. Health Against Wealth takes an unflinching look at the profit-hungry entrepreneurs who have poured into this new" health industry" and provides alarming examples of political manipulation by increasingly powerful HMO lobbyists. At the same time, the book explores the hopes and frustr

Britain's decision to "Brexit" from the European Union (EU) has caused great uncertainty and justified concern with respect to intellectual property laws and investments. Post-Brexit arrangements between the EU and Britain have not yet been determined, and it is unclear whether these will be settled with respect to intellectual property law before Brexit takes effect in 2019. With intellectual property intensive industries accounting for 88% of EU imports and 90% of EU exports, British-EU intellectual property arrangements are the subject of intense interest worldwide as intellectual property owners and users speculate as to the likely implications of Brexit.Focusing on implications for intellectual property law and interests, this Article identifies jurisdictional issues that will need to be resolved as Brexit approaches, and it analyses potential consequences of various choices. The results will influence the post-Brexit future of intellectual property within the EU and Britain, and questions about substantive intellectual property arrangements will remain ambiguous until these jurisdictional issues have been settled. The Article suggests that the national interests of Britain and the EU alike will be best served by a "soft Brexit" approach with respect to intellectual property laws, which results in a high degree of intellectual property harmonization being maintained between the two jurisdictions post-Brexit.Finally, the Article looks forward to the mid-long term future post-Brexit, and it concludes with a discussion about whether Brexit will necessarily signal a fragmentation of intellectual property jurisdiction in Europe. Or, might Brexit in fact lay the foundations for a new era of globalization of intellectual property laws in an EU image? The Article suggests expanded harmonization is possible, and notes that it would be ironic if – after the initial wave of fear about its fragmentary implications – Brexit were to result in the territorial extension of the EU's intellectual property jurisdiction beyond EU borders. As this outcome would be consistent with EU policy to date, the Article suggests that strategic EU negotiators may plan ambitiously to 'go soft' and 'go long' with respect to intellectual property jurisdiction when negotiating the post-Brexit relationship with Britain.

Intellectual property owners often face difficulties when trying to enforce their rights in cross-border and multi-jurisdictional disputes. Enforcement processes usually need to be litigated jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction, which can be prohibitively complicated and expensive. Chinese investors can find themselves facing unpredictable outcomes if they try to enforce their intellectual property rights abroad, and outcomes may vary dramatically although similar facts are presented in each dispute in different jurisdictions. Similarly, foreign intellectual property holders may face quite diverse litigation environments and outcomes if they wish to enforce their rights in different jurisdictions, e.g. in the European Union (EU), the United States of America (US) and the People's Republic of China (China). This article examines international steps being taken towards addressing these issues, and it discusses ongoing concerns. Categorizing developments as "cooperative" or "harmonizing", the article first examines cross-border cooperation in intellectual property enforcement and dispute resolution that is found in international treaties. Some agreements are specific to intellectual property law, while others have broader applicability but nonetheless affect the adjudication of intellectual property disputes by domestic courts. Initiatives with respect to the intersection of public international law and intellectual property may resolve many cross-border enforcement difficulties, and the article also considers the use of arbitration to side-step existing problems. The second half of the article examines harmonization. Horizontal and vertical harmonization are being used to streamline laws and administrative processes concerning the acquisition of intellectual property worldwide. This lays foundations from which harmonized enforcement mechanisms may evolve. The article concludes that, in due course, it would not be surprising to see groups of nations develop unitary patents, trademarks and/or designs, and international intellectual property courts through which to enforce them. It would also be unsurprising if – as its own intellectual property system matures, and it becomes increasingly dominant in world trade – China were gradually to take a more leading role in shaping the future of cross-border cooperation and harmonization in intellectual property enforcement and dispute resolution.

Britain's decision to "Brexit" from the European Union ("EU") has generated great uncertainty about what will happen to existing and future intellectual property laws and interests.This Article examines the effects that Brexit seems likely to have upon copyright, patent, trademark and design law in Britain and the EU. It outlines the current frameworks in operation in each of these areas, and discusses how these might be developed in response to Britain's departure from the EU. Brexit's prospective impacts on plant variety rights, geographical indications, semiconductor topographies, trade secrets, and intellectual property practice issues in the EU and Britain are also considered.The Article concludes that, from an intellectual property perspective, the economic interests of both Britain and the rest of the EU are likely to be best served in the mid- to longer-term by taking a "soft Brexit" approach to intellectual property laws. Avoiding rhetorical posturing or retaliation for perceived slights seems, ultimately, likely to produce the best intellectual property-related consequences for both parties.Britain and the EU both stand to damage their commercial environments if their intellectual property arrangements are dramatically altered as a result of Brexit. By contrast, if Britain maintains many existing single market arrangements with respect to intellectual property law – even at the cost of reducing the policy-making freedom that it would enjoy under a "hard(er) Brexit" – the result may be mutually beneficial interdependence. This would arguably produce the best commercial outcomes for the EU and Britain alike.

THE POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MILIEU OF EAST-WEST RELATIONS PROFOUNDLY CHANGED IN RECENT YEARS LARGELY BECAUSE MIKHAIL GORBACHEV CHANGED THE "REALITY" OF EAST-WEST RELATIONS BY SETTING INTO MOTION FUNDAMENTAL REFORMS IN THE DOMESTIC STRUCTURE OF THE SOVIET UNION AND BY INTRODUCING A RADICAL RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE SOVIET APPROACH TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES THE ROLE OF POLITICAL LEARNING AND ADAPTATION IN PAVING THE WAY FOR GORBACHEV. IT ALSO CHARACTERIZES THE CHANGE IN THE POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MILIEU OF EAST-WEST RELATIONS BY FOCUSING ON CHANGES THAT TOOK PLACE IN THREE FUNDAMENTAL VARIABLES THAT PROFOUNDLY AFFECT THE CHARACTER OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: THE "SECURITY DILEMMA"; IDEOLOGY; AND GEOPOLITICAL ASPECTS OF U.S.-SOVIET COMPETITION IN THIRD AREAS.