Christopher LoCascio (JD 2023) was a very busy law student. In addition to being elected 2L and 3L Class President, his many accomplishments while at USC Gould School of Law included serving as editor-in-chief of the Southern California Law Review. During his tenure, LoCascio wrote an article titled, “The Healthcure System: A Regional Accountable Care Model to Remedy Healthcare’s Pricing Problem.” Impressed by his work, Scribes, The American Society of Legal Writers, selected his article for the 2024 Law-Review Award. USC Gould sat down with LoCascio to discuss his article and the award.
Question: How did your experience at USC Gould play a role in your current success?
Answer: I don’t think I could have won this award without all the support I got from the Gould community. I want to thank the article selection committee of the Southern California Law Review for choosing to publish my article in the first place. The editorial team at the Law Review did an outstanding job throughout the editing and publication process. An interdisciplinary work like this article depends on experts to help bridge the gap between big ideas. My faculty mentors were truly outstanding in that regard. I am deeply grateful for the support of Professors Jonathan Barnett and Ankit Shah, who each lent their respective expertise to me whenever I needed it. I had set out to evaluate the healthcare industry through a law and economics lens. Professor Barnett made sure my analysis was sound every step of the way. I also did not feel as though I could offer such a monumental plan to reshape healthcare without the input and guidance of an actual medical doctor. Professor Shah was the ultimate sounding board as I lobbed ideas at him to gauge whether they would in fact work for doctors and hospitals. And last but not least, I consider my family to have an honorary place in the Gould community. I thank them for their support and understanding of all the late nights I spent researching and drafting and editing. From start to finish, I was surrounded by people who embraced my big ideas and encouraged me to press onward. This is something that makes the Gould community special, and I am proud to be part of it.
Q: How does it feel to be recognized by Scribes?
It is incredibly humbling. I thank Scribes, the American Society of Legal Writers, for the honor of winning this year’s award. The article had a long, multi-year journey to get to this point. I worked in public policy before law school, specifically on efforts to reduce the price of college and lessen the burden of student loans. As I did that work, I noticed a striking similarity between the affordability problems facing higher education and those in healthcare. I dreamt of one day tackling healthcare in a meaningful way. When I decided to go to law school, I knew that students generally have the opportunity to publish scholarly works in the Law Review. So I set for myself the goal of writing an ambitious article that would let me develop a new approach to funding healthcare and put out big ideas at a time when they are sorely needed. I felt like I was taking a big risk, and I didn’t know if I would eventually arrive at a plan worth publishing. But I had to try. It was an honor just to have my piece published by the Southern California Law Review. Scholars across the legal world compete to publish in it. But to be selected from all of the student-written articles in the country to win the Scribes Law Review Award is not a distinction I ever expected. The validation of the nation’s legal scholars is the ultimate coda to what has been a truly thrilling experience. I am not sure how many people describe the process of writing a work of legal scholarship as thrilling, but in this case, I certainly do.
Q: How has your article been impactful in the healthcare and insurance industries?
A: I hope to one day look back and say it had an impact, but it takes time to see the kind of change I advocate for in the article. The idea is simple: reimagine the way healthcare providers are paid so they can deliver low-cost, high-quality care to all. The plan I articulate in the article rewards doctors and hospitals for keeping costs down, but it also rewards them for helping to keep patients healthy. When you align the incentives of healthcare providers and patients, everyone shares the desire for lower prices and better care. These are things we can do. And even though my article lays out a plan to accomplish that goal, the task of actually achieving it is anything but simple. The healthcare industry will need to get on board with big, albeit positive changes. Lawmakers will need the courage to enact bold, new legislation. And the public will need to embrace a paradigm shift in healthcare. It can be done. And I think it will be. Someday. The article is just the first step.
Original source can be found here.