Cite as: 536 U. S. 355 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
providers" suggests that an organization may be an HMO under state law (and subject to § 4-10) even if it does not bear risk itself, either because it has "devolve[d]" the risk of health care delivery onto others, or because it has contracted only to provide "administrative" or other services for self-funded plans. Brief for Petitioner 38.
These arguments, however, are built on unsound assumptions. Rush's first contention assumes that an HMO is no longer an insurer when it arranges to limit its exposure, as when an HMO arranges for capitated contracts to compensate its affiliated physicians with a set fee for each HMO patient regardless of the treatment provided. Under such an arrangement, Rush claims, the risk is not borne by the HMO at all. In a similar vein, Rush points out that HMOs may contract with third-party insurers to protect themselves against large claims.
The problem with Rush's argument is simply that a rein-surance contract does not take the primary insurer out of the insurance business, cf. Hartford Fire Ins. Co. v. California, 509 U. S. 764 (1993) (applying McCarran-Ferguson to a dispute involving primary insurers and reinsurers); id., at 772-773 ("[P]rimary insurers . . . usually purchase insurance to cover a portion of the risk they assume from the consumer"), and capitation contracts do not relieve the HMO of its obligations to the beneficiary. The HMO is still bound to provide medical care to its members, and this is so regardless of the ability of physicians or third-party insurers to honor their contracts with the HMO.
Nor do we see anything standing in the way of applying the saving clause if we assume that the general state definition of HMO would include a contractor that provides only administrative services for a self-funded plan.6 Rush points
6 ERISA's "deemer" clause provides an exception to its saving clause that prohibits States from regulating self-funded plans as insurers. See 29 U. S. C. § 1144(b)(2)(B); FMC Corp. v. Holliday, 498 U. S. 52, 61 (1990). Therefore, Illinois's Act would not be "saved" as an insurance law to the
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