646
Syllabus
(a) Under Shaw, supra, the provisions "relate to" ERISA plans if they have a "connection with," or make "reference to," the plans. They clearly make no reference to ERISA plans, and ERISA's text is unhelpful in determining whether they have a "connection with" them. Thus, the Court must look to ERISA's objectives as a guide to the scope of the state law that Congress understood would survive. Pp. 654-656. (b) The basic thrust of the pre-emption clause was to avoid a multiplicity of regulation in order to permit the nationally uniform administration of employee benefit plans. Thus, ERISA pre-empts state laws that mandate employee benefit structures or their administration as well as those that provide alternative enforcement mechanisms. The purpose and effects of New York's statute are quite different, however. The principal reason for charge differentials is that the Blues provide coverage to many subscribers whom the commercial insurers would reject. Since the differentials make the Blues more attractive, they have an indirect economic effect on choices made by insurance buyers, including ERISA plans. However, an indirect economic influence does not bind plan administrators to any particular choice or preclude uniform administrative practice or the provision of a uniform interstate benefit package. It simply bears on the costs of benefits and the relative costs of competing insurance to provide them. Cost uniformity almost certainly is not an object of pre-emption. Rate differentials are common even in the absence of state action, and therefore it is unlikely that ERISA meant to bar such indirect influences under state law. The existence of other common state actions with indirect economic effects on a plan's cost—such as quality control standards and workplace regulation—leaves the intent to pre-empt even less likely, since such laws would have to be superseded as well. New York's surcharges leave plan administrators where they would be in any case, with the responsibility to choose the best overall coverage for the money, and thus they do not bear the requisite "connection with" ERISA plans to trigger pre-emption. Pp. 656-662. (c) This conclusion is confirmed by the decision in Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Service, Inc., 486 U. S. 825, that ERISA preemption falls short of barring application of general state garnishment statutes to participants' benefits in the hands of an ERISA plan. And New York's surcharges do not impose the kind of substantive coverage requirement binding plan administrators that was at issue in Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724, since they do not require plans to deal with only one insurer or to insure against an entire category of illnesses the plans might otherwise choose not to cover. Pp. 662-664.
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007