On December 26th, my friend Harry sent me the Judge's ruling that struck down SF's Health Care Security Ordinance. My first thought was: "Yay! Finally a topic to write about that kinda rhymes with 'Melissa'!"
Second thought: "No one listens to me. People out here are just like family!"
Back in June, I wrote a post about San Francisco's Health Care Security Ordinance (HCSO) in which I stated three things: (1) the Judge will prolly say it is preempted by ERISA, (2) it suffers from inexcusably poor and shortsighted draftsmanship, and (3) it is SO crappily written that it might actually be unconstitutional.
On December 26, Judge White of the United States District Court of the Northern District of California proved point #1 and ruled that the employer contribution part of the HCSO is preempted by ERISA. (I'll explain what that means in the third post of this series. Suffice it to say, the employer contribution part of the HCSO is dead for now.) Which makes points #2 and #3 moot. The case is Golden Gate Restaurant Association v. City and County of San Francisco.
In the next few posts, Ima tell you about the HCSO, ERISA and the recent case we're gonna spend at least a year appealing to the Ninth Circuit, and why we need to stop the legal wrangling and either come up with a new funding mechanism or have Madame Speaker lead a charge to amend ERISA. Who knows? I may even offer some suggestions...like a tax on unnecessarily slow walkers, people whose cigarettes get smoke in my face on the sidewalk and crappy local bands.
Here's another forecast: I think that City Attorney Herrera's Emergency Appeal the Ninth Circuit is fixin' to fail. And I suspect he knows this. But he has to do everything in his power for the sake of appearance. Bless his heart! He is trying to argue that the employer contribution part of the HCSO needs to move forward even though Judge White just struck it down. However, the fact that we have lots of uninsured people does not constitute an emergency unless some catastrophe just caused the loss of insurance. And if the Court permits the employer contribution machine to get rolling, stopping the behemoth and issuing refunds to employers once the law is struck down will be like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. Messy. Impossible. I think that the Court will opt for the unfortunate status quo. Then again, they don't call it the "Ninth Circus" for nothing.
But first, some Boring But Important information on the HCSO.
--Melissa
'bout time you got some new stuff up. Suffice it to say (one of my favorite expressions), we will be waiting for more. r.s.
Posted by: R.S | December 30, 2007 at 17:56
the irony of "benefits" offered by employers is that prior to World War II, no employers offered health or pensions benefits. When wage and price controls were instituted for the war emergency, crafty employers decided to get around wage controls by offering non-wage "benefits" to try and compete for a shrinking labor pool due to the need for soldiers to fight.
50 years later, and that's clearly worked out well for everyone.....
Posted by: Greg | December 31, 2007 at 22:10