816
Scalia, J., dissenting
Constr., 519 U. S., at 333-334. The HFA is a tax on hospitals. Most hospitals are not owned or operated by ERISA funds. This particular ERISA fund has arranged to provide medical benefits for its plan beneficiaries by running hospitals directly, rather than by purchasing the same services at independently run hospitals. If the Fund had made the other choice, and had purchased health care services from a hospital, that facility would have passed the expense of the HFA onto the Fund and its plan beneficiaries through the rates it set for the services provided. The Fund would then have had to decide whether to cover a more limited range of services for its beneficiaries, or perhaps to charge plan members higher rates. Although the tax in such a circumstance would be "indirect," its impact on the Fund's decisions would be in all relevant respects identical to the "direct" impact felt here. Thus, the supposed difference between direct and indirect impact—upon which the Court of Appeals relied in distinguishing this case from Travelers—cannot withstand scrutiny. Any state tax, or other law, that increases the cost of providing benefits to covered employees will have some effect on the administration of ERISA plans, but that simply cannot mean that every state law with such an effect is preempted by the federal statute.16
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia, with whom Justice Thomas joins, dissenting.
"[I]t is the duty of this court to see to it that the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, which is defined and limited by
16 As we acknowledged in Travelers, there might be a state law whose economic effects, intentionally or otherwise, were so acute "as to force an ERISA plan to adopt a certain scheme of substantive coverage or effectively restrict its choice of insurers" and such a state law "might indeed be pre-empted under § 514," 514 U. S., at 668. That is not the case here.
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