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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: (202) 219-8211
"Today's unanimous Supreme Court decision is an important step forward
in the effort to protect patients' rights. This decision means that more people
covered by their employers' benefit plans will have the protection that state
insurance laws provide and which they deserve.
"ERISA, the federal law governing employee benefits, is too often
interpreted as wiping out protections provided by state insurance laws. Today's
decision moves us closer to the goal of ensuring that America's working
families can rely on the benefits they were promised.
"The Court was not required in this case to take the added step of also
preserving remedies provided under state laws for workers and their families
who have been harmed by health plan decisions. But the Court did note this
Administration's view, expressed in our friend of the court brief, that ERISA
should not be read to prevent these state remedies from applying, as it often
is was under the Pilot Life decision. The Court left the door
open for us to present this argument again.
"We will continue to protect patients' rights in courts around the
country. However, even with better understanding of federal law, tens of
millions of Americans in self-insured plans who are not covered by state
insurance laws will still be without remedies unless new and long-overdue
Federal legislation is passed. Only strong patient protection legislation can
truly achieve that goal."
Note to Editors
ERISA governs approximately 2.5 million private sector health plans,
covering 123 million Americans. It is the federal law intended to protect the
health and pension benefits that employers voluntarily provide to their
workers.
In 1986, the government argued to the Supreme Court in the Pilot
Life case that ERISA barred the states from establishing procedures and
remedies for enforcing claims for health care benefits because ERISA set forth
the exclusive procedure for doing so. The brief filed by the government in
November departs from the views expressed in Pilot Life. In this
Administration's view, ERISA should not be read to restrict the states' ability
to provide insurance remedies for employees or their dependents who have been
denied benefits by their employers' health care plans. In this case, the
government's brief alerted the Court that the government's views regarding
preemption have changed, and that we have serious doubts about the reasons
stated in the Pilot Life decision for the Court's ruling.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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