The ERISA Pre-Emption Narrows: Analysis of New York State Conference of Blue Cross & (and) Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Insurance Company and Its Impact on State Regulation of Health Care
![handle is hein.journals/stlulj40 and id is 799 raw text is: NOTES
THE ERISA PRE-EMPTION NARROWS:* ANALYSIS OF NEW
YORK STATE CONFERENCE OF BLUE CROSS & BLUE SHIELD
PLANS V TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY AND ITS IMPACT
ON STATE REGULATION OF HEALTH CARE
I. INTRODUCTION
THIRTY-SEVEN million Americans have no health care insurance and
national health care reform is nowhere in sight.2 With the failure of President
Clinton's universal health care reform proposal and other reform proposals
submitted by various members of Congress in 1994,' the reality of low cost,
high quality health care with access to all appears as far away as ever before.
State lawmakers have begun to enact health care legislation focused on
increasing access and controlling costs with a renewed sense of urgency.'
However, there exist many barriers to comprehensive state health care reform
initiatives. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974'
* This Note, by Walter E. Schuler, was selected as the best student work to appear in
Volume 40 of the SAINT Louis UNIVERSITY LAW JOURNAL.
1. 115 S. Ct. 1671 (1995).
2. Dennis O'Brien, Don't Worry. If Something Happens To You, You'll Get Good Indigent
Care, AMERICA, Oct. 28, 1995, at 8.
3. For a brief discussion of these failed proposals and the likely causes of their demise, see
Bruce W. Karrh, Health Care Reform in the United States, 13-SPG DEL. LAW. 17 (1995); David
Blumenthal, Health Care Reform-Past and Future, 332 NEW ENG. J. MED. 465 (1995).
4. See Devon P. Groves, ERISA Waivers and State Health Care Reform, 28 COLUM. J.L.
& SOC. PROBS. 609, 614 (1995) (stating that [t]he present lack of a national plan is only one
necessary condition to foster state initiatives, leaving the problems of costs and coverage
unresolved. ... Some states are forging ahead, perhaps more urgently since the failure of
universal coverage at the national level.).
5. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, Pub. L. No. 93-406, 88 Stat.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/stlulj40&div=41&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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