“Legislature passes bill requiring many companies to provide insurance“: SFGate.com is reporting that California will become the fourth state in the country to require employers to offer their workers health insurance if a bill which passed the Senate on Friday, 25-14, and the Assembly early Saturday, 46-31, is signed by Governor Gray Davis. According to the article, California will then join Hawaii, Washington and Oregon, as states with similar employee-mandated health insurance systems. The Mercury News has this report about the bill: “Health insurance legislation at-a-glance.”
You can obtain information about the bill at this link.
Other reports:
The East Bay Business Times: “Health care bill’s cost to fall on state’s employers.“
The Sacramento Bee: “Major health change is OK’d: Legislation would assure care for 1 million uninsured workers.”
An article from the The Galen Institute–“Tired Ideas and Innovative Solutions“–has this to say regarding the possible future challenges under ERISA:
My colleague Greg Scandlen predicts that the legislation, if signed by an apparently willing Gov. Gray Davis, will face years of court tests. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) makes it clear that the federal government, not states, have authority over employee health plans. (Hawaii’s employer mandate was grandfathered in the 1970s.) But Burton has written his bill to make it a test case that supporters believe can crack ERISA.