Background issues here
"Ninth Circuit Finds No ERISA Preemption of San Francisco Ordinance Mandating Employer Healthcare Expenditures"
[October 3, 2008, Health Lawyers Weekly, Vol. VI, Issue 38, AHLA]
In a closely watched decision, the Ninth Circuit ruled September 30 that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) does not preempt a San Francisco Ordinance setting new healthcare spending mandates for employers.
Reversing a December 2007 lower court decision, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit held the Ordinance's employer spending mandates did not establish an ERISA plan, nor did they have an impermissible “connection with” employers’ ERISA plans or make an impermissible “reference to” such plans.
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"DOL Argues ERISA Preempts San Francisco Ordinance Mandating Employer Healthcare Expenditures"
[April 11, 2008, Health Lawyers Weekly, Vol. VI, Issue 14, AHLA]
The Department of Labor (DOL) has submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Ninth Circuit arguing a lower court correctly found the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) preempts a San Francisco ordinance setting new healthcare spending mandates for employers.
According to the brief, ERISA preempts the employer spending requirements in the San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance, which went into effect January 1, 2008 for large employers, because “they mandate employee benefit structures or their administration” and “interfere with uniform plan administration.”
In its brief, DOL argues the Ordinance “purports to directly regulate the provision of health benefits by private employers to their employees and, in this manner, governs precisely the same relationships that Congress subjected to exclusive federal regulation under ERISA.”
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"Justice Kennedy Refuses to Prevent San Francisco Ordinance Mandating Employer Healthcare Expenditures from Taking Effect During Appeal"
[February 29, 2008, Health Lawyers Weekly, Vol. VI, Issue 8, AHLA]
Justice Anthony Kennedy rejected February 21 an application by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association (GGRA) asking him to prevent a San Francisco ordinance setting new healthcare spending mandates for employers from taking effect while the challenge to the ordinance is under appeal.
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