Feds, states fight for health insurance control
September 28, 2007
I stumbled across an interesting post this morning (thank you, Google Alerts!) that questions whether federal health insurance laws should pre-empt state ones.
The State Policy Network, which blogged on the topic, bills itself as the “professional service organization for America’s state-based, free market think tank community.” The post centers on the federal ERISA, or Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
From the post:
Organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are concerned that some legislators want to punch holes in ERISA. Most of these legislators are on the wrong side of things: they are unhappy that a court found that a Maryland law that would oppress Wal-Mart’s ability to freely negotiate health benefits with its workers violated ERISA.
Nevertheless, such federal intervention unsettles free-market activists. After all, if your state government is messing up health insurance, vote them out and get better lawmakers. If you can’t do that, and Wal-Mart bails out of Maryland, go to one in Virginia or Pennsylvania. Eventually, the state will feel the economic pain and improve its policies.
What, ideally, should Maryland do — legislatively or otherwise — on this issue?
And is there a viable compromise between state and federal regulation?
-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor
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