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Yesterday, we talked about the impact of the election on the PPACA, as well as the implications of the PPACA for employers. Today, we’ll delve into the implications for healthcare industry sectors with our final post in the series. 

Lynn kicked it off by saying that before we go into each sector individually, she wanted to make an introductory comment. There are people who have asked why did the stock market reach bullish about healthcare stocks following the decision, but then not bullish about it, and whether anything can be read into this. Lynn said that whenever she reads these kinds of articles, she has to laugh, because each company is in their own relationship with entitlement programs and private health insurance, and they have different starting points and are in different states. 

She said there is the number one issue – what she calls the "elephant in the room" – which is whether the penalty is strong enough to get people to buy health insurance, in which case, you’ll have a different set of winners and losers, versus whether the penalty does not. Will employers drop people into the exchange, or will they stay self-funded and keep the insurance that they have? Continue Reading SCOTUS Decision on the PPACA – Implications for Healthcare Industry Sectors Part I

Our series recapping the Epstein Becker & Green webinar on the Supreme Court’s Decision regarding Obamacare continues! Today, we’ll be talking about the impact of the upcoming election on the plan, as well as the implications for employers. 

Impact of the Upcoming Election

Lynn asked the panelists to comment on the Presidential election and the swing states, saying that there wasn’t even agreement among the panelists as to which states are the swing states. Bill agreed, and said that both political parties count different states as swing states. He thinks that the six states that both parties agree on as swing states are Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania. 

Some Republicans think other swing states include Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire, while Democrats think Arizona and North Carolina are swing states. Bill said that if you look at the six, and you look at what the various parties and independent organizations are doing, they’ve centered on these states, and that’s where almost all of the money is currently being spent. Continue Reading SCOTUS Decision on the PPACA – Impact of the Upcoming Election & Implications for Employers

Last week, we talked about the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision for the states. Today, we’ll look at the potential Congressional response.

Lynn began by suggesting the panelists speak about the federal level, as she’s cynical about the 90% and 100% matching, when we’re going into a period of austerity. She said she would like them to talk about entitlement reform and deficit reduction, and asked whether the decision to expand Medicaid has a lot to do with people’s confidences that the 100% and 90% matching money will remain the law of the land at the federal level.  Continue Reading SCOTUS Decision on the PPACA – Potential Congressional Response

After our 2012 Annual Meeting, I recapped a session from the conference that had focused on the topic of healthcare reform (See here, here and here). Once the Supreme Court announced their decision, Epstein Becker & Green’s healthcare experts once again came out to help us understand what’s in, what’s out and what’s next with their webinar on July 2nd. 

Since it’s always good to hear from the experts, I thought I’d recap the webinar here for you, again, breaking it up into manageable bites (so to speak). Continue Reading Overview and Analysis of the SCOTUS PPACA Decision – A Recap

Following Doug’s comments on the case for payment and delivery reform in the United States, Stuart Gerson was next to the podium to discuss whether the mandate is constitutional. 

Stuart began by saying that it’s important to understand one thing – this discussion, besides the quality and efficiency issues, is about health insurance and not about healthcare itself. This is one of the real pitfalls of the US system – we provide healthcare to almost everyone, but it’s done through a series of cost-shifting and inefficiencies, and that’s what these programs are trying to address. 

He added that he hoped to make his presentation interesting for non-Americans, many of whom live in systems with national health programs supplemented by private insurance. These countries feel that they have all the answers, and in some senses they do, with many of the countries providing a reasonable quality of healthcare at a vastly lower percentage of the GDP than what the US is doing. Although the US has some high end medicine, we also have a lot of inefficiency. Continue Reading Is the Mandate Constitutional – US National Health Care Act – a Presentation by Stuart Gerson

So far, we’ve re-capped Alishan Naqvee’s introduction to anti-corruption laws, and Stuart Gerson’s comments on the US’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  Following Stuart’s presentation, the group heard from Charles Wander of Fladgate LLP, who spoke about the new UK Bribery Act.

Charles began by saying that he would give a brief overview of what’s coming on July 1, 2011 in the UK.  As he had mentioned during an earlier session, the firm has been doing some work on this with their clients, trying to understand what the issues might be.  As Stuart had said, this is going to be applied on a worldwide basis, so it will be applied to anyone with any kind of tenuous connection with the UK.  

The UK was not without anti-bribery legislation – through the end of June they would have a piece of legislation dating back to the 19th century. It was ultimately felt that this didn’t have sufficient teeth.  The UK was criticized in 1997 by the OECD when the incoming Labour administration discontinued an investigation into alleged bribery by British Aerospace, as part of the Al Yamamah contracts in Saudi Arabia.  This was heavily criticized as being a decision made for political reasons.Continue Reading Corporate Breakout Session – Anti-Corruption Laws – UK Bribery Act

Yesterday, I shared with you this post re-capping Alishan Naqvee’s introduction to the topic of anti-corruption at our 2011 Annual Meeting.  To follow up on that, we’ll review Stuart Gerson’s (Epstein Becker & Green) comments during the session regarding the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and its implications for those in the room.  

Stuart provided the attendees with both an article he and a colleague authored on the FCPA, and an overview that their healthcare group had developed.  Stuart said that as Alishan had mentioned, both the FCPA and the new UK Anti-Bribery law are extraterritorial – but not only are they applied overseas throughout the world, but they are also applied against non-US citizens, as long as the commerce that they’re supporting is in the stream of interstate commerce within the US.

So non-US citizens who have never stepped food in the US are subject to the FCPA, which is a criminal statute that has long jail sentences associated with it.  Additionally, they have fines up to $2 million per offense – and an offense is an individual act, so there could be a long series of them that results in the fines adding up to immense sums.  And this is applicable all around the world.Continue Reading Corporate Breakout Session – Anti-Corruption Laws – the FCPA

During our  2011 Annual Meeting in Lisbon, we had specialty group breakout sessions – and lucky for you, our corporate session was recorded! The group had a roundtable discussion dedicated to the topic of "Anti-Corruption Laws and Navigating Client Businesses in Foreign Territories," which was moderated by Alishan Naqvee of LexCounsel Lawyers in India.

Alishan began with some slides to aid the discussion, saying that there is an organization in Japan called Control Risks, who conducted a survey of about 50 companies in Brazil, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, the UK and the US.  All of them said that corruption is a major cost for international business, and at the same time, an increasing number of companies in the world, while they are not absolutely aware of the anti-corruption laws in their jurisdictions, most of their business is governed by them, even when doing business in other jurisdictions.

However, corruption brings a very different dimension in cross-border investments, because the country from where the investee is investing and the country where the investment is being made may be governed by separate parameters and laws.  These could be domestic, but at the same time, there could be laws from the country where the investment is being made.Continue Reading Corporate Breakout Session – A Re-Cap