Judge overturns MD's Wal-Mart Bill...

[nickshepDEM]

Sad tay for tax payers across the state. Once again we will be subsidizing Wal-Mart's employee health care.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WAL_MART?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-07-19-14-23-03

BALTIMORE (AP) -- A first-of-its-kind state law that would have required Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health care in Maryland is invalid under federal law, a judge ruled Wednesday.

The state law would have required non-governmental employers with 10,000 or more workers to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on health care or pay the difference in taxes. The measure was aimed at Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which has been under attack by critics who say that its inadequate health care offering is forcing some employees to use state-funded plans.

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."

[rfranklin]

1. Hope he enjoys the payoff...

Unless he was too stupid to accept it.

[havocmom]

2. Hope he loses his job, career, hope and has to work for Wal-Mart

[aein]

3. sorry, too bad, federal judges have a lifetime appointment...

those damn activist judges...actually I think he's right, ERISA is considered a field preempting statute

[MissWaverly]

4. I am hoping for an appeal on State Rights issues

don't tell me that states can't pass this, Maryland wanted to do this because the health
care of Walmart employees is being subsidized by we the taxpayers. It's not fair for the
government to pay for Walmart's low prices by taking on the cost of this. His argument
was not that this was right or wrong but that this should be done federally so it could
be uniform. Remember 2000 when the Supreme Court wanted to be fair, and took away our right
to elect a president.