Domestic Parnters eligibility for ERISA plans

[Guest benefitsnerd]

With California passing various bills requiring employers to offer health coverage to domestic partners, will partially self funded plans be requried to follow suit or will they pre-empt state law?

In addition, is anyone aware of any recent legislation requiring employers to make health insurance available to parents? If so, your comments and reference to the actual bill would be greatly appreciated.

[Ron Snyder]

States regulate insurance contracts. The US DoL regulates ERISA plans. To the extent that an insurance contract may also be an ERISA plan, it may be regulated by both federal and state laws and regulations. No state may impose a regulation that is less than the minimum standards imposed by ERISA; such would be pre-empted by ERISA.

Self-funded (and partially self-funded) health plans of individual employers or of controlled groups of employers are generally exempt from state insurance laws, and are therefore regulated by the US DoL under ERISA.

Self-funded (and partially self-funded) health plans of other groups are called MEWAs and are regulated both by the US DoL and the states. ERISA does not pre-empt state regulation of MEWAs.