The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is a federal law that sets minimum standards for most private voluntarily established retirement and health plans. Increasingly, more of the roughly 155 million Americans with employer-sponsored coverage are enrolled in self-insured group health plans regulated under ERISA. The potential preemption of certain state laws by ERISA can have significant ramifications for efforts to lower health care prices and premiums for consumers.
