668
Opinion of the Court
III
That said, we do not hold today that ERISA pre-empts only direct regulation of ERISA plans, nor could we do that with fidelity to the views expressed in our prior opinions on the matter. See, e. g., Ingersoll-Rand, 498 U. S., at 139; Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U. S. 41, 47-48 (1987); Shaw, 463 U. S., at 98. We acknowledge that a state law might produce such acute, albeit indirect, economic effects, by intent or otherwise, as to force an ERISA plan to adopt a certain scheme of substantive coverage or effectively restrict its choice of insurers, and that such a state law might indeed be pre-empted under § 514. But as we have shown, New York's surcharges do not fall into either category; they affect only indirectly the relative prices of insurance policies, a result no different from myriad state laws in areas traditionally subject to local regulation, which Congress could not possibly have intended to eliminate.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
1983, the House Committee on Ways and Means recommended that States should not be held to traditional DRG-based reimbursement systems. "State systems provide a laboratory for innovative methods of controlling health care costs, and should, therefore, not be limited to one methodology." H. R. Rep. No. 98-25, pt. 1, pp. 146-147 (1983). The Committee concluded that "State systems covering all payors have proven effective in reducing health costs and should be encouraged. Such State programs may be useful models for our national system." Id., at 147-148. While the history of Medicare waivers and implementing legislation enacted after ERISA itself is, of course, not conclusive proof of the congressional intent behind ERISA, the fact that Congress envisioned state experiments with comprehensive hospital reimbursement regulation supports our conclusion that ERISA was not meant to pre-empt basic rate regulation.
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