Moran, Kentucky Ass'n of Health Plans, and Davila: The (R)Evolution of ERISA Preemption

Authors

Michael E. Nitardy, Frost Brown Todd LLC

First Page

139

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This article chronicles the Supreme Court's recent pronouncements on the issue of ERISA preemption and attempts to assess what impact the varied pronouncements will have on the legal landscape. Specifically, the article analyzes the impact of Rush Prudential HMO, Inc. v. Moran, Kentucky Ass'n of Health Plans, Inc. v. Miller ("KAHP") and Davila. Although the cases address different aspects of preemption, together, the three provide a panoramic landscape of what the Supreme Court believes the appropriate emphasis of ERISA preemption should be. Part II of this article explores the background of ERISA and its preemption provisions. Part III recounts the growth of modem health care and the rise of managed care. Part IV discusses the Supreme Court's ERISA preemption jurisprudence, including the Court's most recent three cases of Moran, KAHP, and Davila. Part V attempts to analyze these three cases, given the different areas of preemption they represent. Part VI presents a proposal on how to fix the obvious problems caused by preemption. The proposal discusses how Congress can specifically provide that claims similar to the one described above are eliminated from ERISA's reach and left to the states to regulate and litigate. Finally, the article concludes in Part VII.

Recommended Citation

Michael E. Nitardy, Moran, Kentucky Ass'n of Health Plans, and Davila: The (R)Evolution of ERISA Preemption, 18 St. Thomas L. Rev. 139 (2005).
Available at: https://scholarship.stu.edu/stlr/vol18/iss1/8