Toward a Specific Intent Requirement in White Collar Crime Statutes: How the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 Sheds Light on the “General Intent Revolution”

Authors

Elizabeth R. Sheyn, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Abstract

The recent passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (collectively, ACA), has altered the landscape of health care and health insurance. However, it has also served to highlight the revolution in the intent requirement for white collar crimes. In particular, the ACA lowers the intent requirement for several health care fraud statutes from “specific intent to defraud” to “general intent to deceive,” which is consistent with federal courts’ recent trend of not requiring proof of the defendant’s knowledge of the law before finding a violation of a particular statute proscribing a so-called “white collar crime.” In contrast to some of the ACA’s other substantive provisions, the constitutionality of these provisions has not yet been considered by federal courts or evaluated by scholars.

This Article describes this “intent revolution” against the backdrop of the ACA and other white collar crime statutes and offers some thoughts on why, and how, the ACA should be curbed, particularly in the context of white collar offenses.

Recommended Citation

Elizabeth R. Sheyn, Toward a Specific Intent Requirement in White Collar Crime Statutes: How the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 Sheds Light on the “General Intent Revolution”, 64 Fla. L. Rev. 449 (2012).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol64/iss2/4