Abstract
The United States spends more for health care per capita than any other country in the world. Despite spending more, the United States has weaker health care outcomes than other similarly developed countries. This fact alone makes health care an important subject for policy reform. Given the current partisan gridlock in Congress, it is difficult to foresee any significant legislation in the area of health care reform at the federal level in the near future. As a result, Congress has allocated major health care reform efforts to the states. However, ERISA stands as a huge obstacle to state health care reform due to the Supreme Court’s broad interpretation of its preemption clause. This Note provides a critique of ERISA’s preemption clause through a Brandeisian theory of federalism and argues that ERISA can serve its purpose of protecting workers' pensions while also allowing states to be laboratories for health care policy.
Recommended Citation
Jordan May,
A Case for Brandeisian Federalism: The ERISA Preemption Clause and State Health Care Reform,
24
DePaul J. Health Care L.
(2023)
Available at:
https://via.library.depaul.edu/jhcl/vol24/iss1/1