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

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

Welcome to ILN-terviews, a series of profiles of ILN member firm attorneys, designed to give a unique insight into the lawyers who make up our Network. For our latest interview, we chose ILN member, Stuart Gerson of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. in Washington, D.C.

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
Representing