SCOTUS Asked to Weigh Seattle Hotel Worker Insurance Mandate

A Seattle law requiring large hotels and related businesses to give workers either health insurance coverage or enhanced compensation is preempted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a trade group representing employers told the U.S. Supreme Court.

Seattle’s “play or pay” law and others like it “brazenly mandate the provision of certain levels of ERISA-covered benefits, but they also deem employers in compliance if they cut a check in the same amount directly to their employees or to the government,” the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), a trade group representing large employers with ERISA-governed benefit plans, said in a ...