A federal requirement that donor blood be labelled as either “paid” or “volunteer” took effect on May 15, 1978. A major rationale for requiring such labelling is that physicians, now that they can distinguish between categories of blood, will fear liability for post-transfusion hepatitis resulting from the use of paid blood. Thus, supporters of the labelling requirement hope that it will deter the use of high-risk commercial blood. Some paid blood, however, is not commercial blood and in fact may be safer than volunteer blood. The labelling strategy for hepatitis control, therefore, has negative as well as positive attributes. This Article considers the efficacy of blood labelling as a hepatitis control measure and proposes an alternative strategy—the periodic publicizing of hepatitis rates of facilities that perform transfusions—that, if practiced responsibly, could significantly decrease hepatitis transmission rates.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare recently proposed a “Family Responsibility Plan” which would impose a financial obligation upon adult children in the state for the nursing-home care of their parents who receive Medicaid. By examining the Massachusetts plan, this Note seeks to evaluate the viability of a concept of family responsibility, under which adult children contribute to the state Medicaid expenses of their medically indigent parents in nursing homes, as a means of combating the increase in state Medicaid expenditures. The Note examines the legal and policy issues raised by the Massachusetts welfare department's plan in particular, and by the concept of family responsibility in general. The author concludes that alternative methods of cost containment, such as positive financial incentives, would be more appropriate mechanisms for reducing state Medicaid expenditures than family—that is, adult child—responsibility plans.