The corporate regimen of labour companies in the New Act 44/2015, on 14th October, of labour and investee companies

Act 44/2015, on 14th October, of labour and investee companies, aims to accommodate the different instruments, limits and requirements with which the legal regime of the labour companies is set, to the current economic and legal context where they must develop their economic activity. The purpose of the law is to preserve their special status, while it seeks to modernize its legal structure to ensure the economic solvency of the business plan, without weakening the social profile that is required. The new law includes two organisational figures, ‘labour companies’ and the calling ‘investee companies’, of the last one, only leaving evidence of what is to be understood by them referring its regulation to a subsequent regulatory development. Until the publication of the regulation, our work has focused on the corporate aspect of the labour companies by analysing the modifications made on the typological elements and legal regime of these organisational figures to determine whether the law is the necessary and sufficient instrument to achieve the challenge proposed.

The Affordable Care Act and the Transformation of US Health Care

The neoliberal period was accompanied by a momentous transformation within the US health care system.  As the result of a number of political and historical dynamics, the healthcare law signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 ‑the Affordable Care Act (ACA)‑ drew less on universal models from abroad than it did on earlier conservative healthcare reform proposals. This was in part the result of the influence of powerful corporate healthcare interests. While the ACA expands healthcare coverage, it does so incompletely and unevenly, with persistent uninsurance and disparities in access based on insurance status. Additionally, the law accommodates an overall shift towards a consumerist model of care characterized by high cost sharing at time of use. Finally, the law encourages the further consolidation of the healthcare sector, for instance into units named “Accountable Care Organizations” that closely resemble the health maintenance organizations favored by managed care advocates. The overall effect has been to maintain a fragmented system that is neither equitable nor efficient. A single payer universal system would, in contrast, help transform healthcare into a social right.