The U.S. Supreme Court is in session today and has issued its order list which apparently includes review of the following ERISA case which was consolidated: Aetna Health Inc. v. Davila and Cigna Healthcare of Texas Inc. v. Calad.
“Supreme Court to Rule on Patients’ Rights“: Anne Gearan for the Associated Press reports via Yahoo! News. David Savage for the LATimes also has this: “U.S. Courts Rule Patients Have Right to Sue HMOs: Two appeals verdicts go against interpretation of a 1973 law that has shielded health-care groups from damages.“
As you may recall, this post discussed Third Circuit Court Judge Edward Becker’s plea in a concurring opinion in the case of DiFelice v. Aetna for Congress and the Supreme Court to “revisit what is an unjust and increasingly tangled ERISA regime.” Judge Becker states that “[e]ven if Congress refuses to act, however, the Supreme Court, in its interpretive capacity, is capable of effecting salutary change in many ways. The Court has no crystal ball, and twenty years ago it could not have foreseen the radical changes that have overtaken the health care system, and the difficulties that its preemption decisions would create. The time might be right to reconsider . . .”