Opinion ID: 2634504
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Implied field preemption as applied to ERISA

Text: ERISA's express preemption and saving clauses demonstrate that ERISA does not impliedly preempt the entire field of HMO regulation. As the United States Supreme Court has stated: When Congress has considered the issue of pre-emption and has included in the enacted legislation a provision explicitly addressing that issue, and when that provision provides a reliable indicium of congressional intent with respect to state authority, there is no need to infer congressional intent to pre-empt state laws from the substantive provisions of the legislation. Such reasoning is a variant of the familiar principle of expressio unius est exclusio alterius: Congress' enactment of a provision defining the pre-emptive reach of a statute implies that matters beyond that reach are not pre-empted. Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U.S. 504, 517, 112 S.Ct. 2608, 120 L.Ed.2d 407 (1992) (citations and internal quotation signals omitted). See also Rush Prudential, 536 U.S. at 365, 122 S.Ct. 2151 ([T]he historic police powers of the States were not [meant] to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress. (Citations and internal quotation signals omitted.) (Second alteration in original.)). That ERISA contains an express preemption clause and a saving clause demonstrates that Congress did not intend ERISA to occupy the entire field of HMO regulation. Furthermore, in Rush Prudential, the Supreme Court held that a state law regulating the insurance features of an HMO was saved by § 1144(b)(2)(A), even though the HMO in question contracted to provide medical services for an ERISA-covered employee welfare benefit plan. Rush Prudential, 536 U.S. at 359, 122 S.Ct. 2151. Additionally, as the Supreme Court stated in English v. General Electric Co., 496 U.S. 72, 79, 110 S.Ct. 2270, 110 L.Ed.2d 65 (1990): Although this Court has not hesitated to draw an inference of field pre-emption where it is supported by the federal statutory and regulatory schemes, it has emphasized:  Where ... the field which Congress is said to have pre-empted includes areas that have been traditionally occupied by the States, congressional intent to supersede state laws must be `clear and manifest.' (Quoting Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U.S. 519, 525, 97 S.Ct. 1305, 51 L.Ed.2d 604 (1977) (quoting Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230, 67 S.Ct. 1146, 91 L.Ed. 1447 (1947)).) Health care is `a subject of traditional state regulation,' Rush Prudential, 536 U.S. at 387, 122 S.Ct. 2151 (quoting Pegram v. Herdrich, 530 U.S. 211, 237, 120 S.Ct. 2143, 147 L.Ed.2d 164 (2000)); therefore, because we can find no clear and manifest congressional intent to supersede state-law HMO regulations, we hold that implied field preemption does not apply to Hawaii's external review statute.