the battle for better healthcare: Wal-Mart 1, workers 0

In a huge victory for workers and public health, Maryland recently adopted a law stating that all private companies employing more than 10,000 workers (that is, Wal-Mart) have to spend 8 percent of their payroll on health care.  If they don't, they must make up the difference in taxes.  The law is backed not only by a majority of Maryland lawbreakers, but 77% of the state population as well.

Unfortunately, yesterday that law was overturned.

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz decided that the Maryland Fair Share Health Care Fund Act would have hurt Wal-Mart by requiring it to track and allocate benefits for its Maryland employees in a different way from how it keeps track of employee benefits in other states. Motz wrote that the law "imposes legally cognizable injury upon Wal-Mart."

Motz cited the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which he said pre-empts "any and all state laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan."

"My finding that the act is pre-empted is in accordance with long established Supreme Court law that state laws which impose health or welfare mandates on employers are invalid under ERISA," Motz wrote in his 32-page opinion.

The Maryland Attorney General plans to appeal, so this isn't over, but it's certainly a huge setback for the state.  As for the judge's rationale, I'm no legal wonk (that's sorta why I wrote this diary), but it appears that ERISA (among other things) sets a baseline for healthcare/pension plans for private interstate companies, so as to alleviate the "patchwork" system of laws those companies would have to follow otherwise.  Does that mean states can't set rules above and beyond those mandated by ERISA?

Obviously, I hate to see this happen to workers.  Health care in this country is abyssmal, and yet it seems like everyone's just maintaining the status quo and expecting somebody else to do the legwork of changing the system.  Private sector?  Government?  Healthcare industry?  All 3 have a stake in this and are paying for the shoddiness of the system in some way or another, and yet none of them are doing anything to fix this mess.

I hear there's been some talk of other states, like Oregon, adopting similar laws, but that's all probably on ice for now until the courts iron this out.  The question is, will they burn workers in the process?

Legal and policy wonks: what's your take?  Has the judge correctly internalized the law, or is he out to lunch?  What are the state's chances in the appellate court?