James G. Hodge Jr., the ASU Lincoln Professor of Health Law and Ethics, was quoted by The

James G. Hodge Jr.

Associated Press in a March 19 article, “Arizona birth control bill stalls, to be changed,” by reporter Paul Davenport.

The article  was widely published by, among other newspapers and websites, The Washington Post, Salon.com, the Albuquerque Journal, the Billings Gazette, SouthCoastToday.com, WPXI.com and WBTV.com.

Hodge, Director of the Public Health Law Network – Western Region, housed at the College of Law, weighed in on a bill in the Arizona legislature that would let employers drop coverage of their employees’ contraceptives. The bill was halted in the state Senate due to increasing opposition from women fearing they would be required to reveal private health information to their employers.

Hodge told Davenport that employees can be required to waive privacy rights and give access to employers in order to be reimbursed for medical expenses. “It’s not unusual for the employer to have to ask for medical confirmation of specific things,” he said.

Employers generally aren’t subject to privacy requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act (HIPAA), unlike physicians and insurance plans, he noted.

A blog post about the bill, with comments from Hodge, also was published on Daily Kos.

Hodge is Director of the College of Law’s Public Health Law and Policy Program, a Faculty Fellow in the Center for Law, Science & Innovation, and an affiliate faculty member in the ASU School of Human Evolution & Social Change, the School of Public Affairs and the Department of Biomedical Informatics. Through scholarship, teaching, and applied projects, Hodge delves into multiple areas of health law, public health law, global health law, ethics and human rights. He teaches Health Law, Ethics, and Policy, Public Health Law and Ethics, and Global Health Law and Policy.