388
Thomas, J., dissenting
Justice Thomas, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Kennedy join, dissenting.
This Court has repeatedly recognized that ERISA's civil enforcement provision, § 502 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U. S. C. § 1132, provides the exclusive vehicle for actions asserting a claim for benefits under health plans governed by ERISA, and therefore that state laws that create additional remedies are preempted. See, e. g., Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U. S. 41, 52 (1987); Massachusetts Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Russell, 473 U. S. 134, 146-147 (1985). Such exclusivity of remedies is necessary to further Congress' interest in establishing a uniform federal law of employee benefits so that employers are encouraged to provide benefits to their employees: "To require plan providers to design their programs in an environment of differing state regulations would complicate the administration of nationwide plans, producing inefficiencies that employers might offset with decreased benefits." FMC Corp. v. Holliday, 498 U. S. 52, 60 (1990).
Of course, the "expectations that a federal common law of rights and obligations under ERISA-regulated plans would develop . . . would make little sense if the remedies available to ERISA participants and beneficiaries under § 502(a) could be supplemented or supplanted by varying state laws." Pilot Life, supra, at 56. Therefore, as the Court concedes, see ante, at 377, even a state law that "regulates insurance" may be pre-empted if it supplements the remedies provided by ERISA, despite ERISA's saving clause, § 514(b)(2)(A), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(b)(2)(A). See Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U. S. 238, 248 (1984) (noting that state laws that stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment of the full purposes and objectives of Congress are pre-empted).1 Today, however,
1 I would assume without deciding that 215 Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 125, § 4-10 (2000) is a law that "regulates insurance." We can begin and end the pre-emption analysis by asking if § 4-10 conflicts with the provisions
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