State "fair share" law violates federal law
Published Wed, Jan 17 2007 5:39 PM
Technorati Tags: Health and Wellness, News and Politics, Liberals, Courts
This will get the liberals and the Wal-Mart haters into a frothy lather. From the New York Times:
A federal appeals court ruled today that Maryland violated federal law when it required Wal-Mart Stores to increase spending on employee health insurance, in a decision that appears likely to end a bitter yearlong legal battle that pitted state legislators, organized labor and health care advocates against the nation’s largest retailer.
...
By requiring employers in Maryland to restructure insurance plans, the court found, the law “conflicts” with the intent of the federal labor law, known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA.
The ruling could have wide-ranging implications for the so-called fair share health care legislation under consideration in several states, which has been put on hold while lawmakers awaited a final ruling in the Maryland case. It was not immediately clear whether Maryland officials were planning to appeal the case to the full circuit court or ultimately to the United States Supreme Court.
The lawsuit that overturned the Maryland law was sponsored by the Retail Industry Leaders Association, a Virginia-based trade group of which Wal-Mart is a member.
In an interview, Sandy Kennedy, the trade group’s president, said, “The court has a sent a strong message at states looking at similar bills: these violate federal law.”
This is good news. Skyrocketing health-care insurance costs have nearly bankrupted some major American businesses. They've also put the retirement plans at many companies at risk. Wal-Mart was and is being unfairly targeted by the left for all the wrong reasons.
The argument that Wal-Mart has an obligation to pay a greater percentage of it's costs for health-care benefits for its workers is pretty weak to begin with. Employer provided health-care insurance is a benefit, not a right.
It also conflicts with another of the left's goals: socialized medicine. If the goal is to have government provided health-care for all, then private health-care insurance or employer provided health-care insurance works completely counter to that.
Of course what the leftists seem to have forgotten in this whole tiff with Wal-Mart should leave them red-faced with embarrassment. By arguing that Wal-Mart must pay more for health care because of ballooning Medicaid costs the left has effectively argued that government can't afford socialized medicine.
What will Hillary do?
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