ERISA Industry Committee Outlines Latest Employer Priorities

The ERISA Industry Committee sent a letter on Tuesday to members of Congress stating its positions on several policy issues that affect large employer member companies that provide health, retirement and other benefits to workers across the country.

The public letter was released on the heels of the American Benefits Council’s release of its public policy strategic plan for employer-sponsored retirement and health plans for the next five years.

ERIC’s letter touches on maintaining the current tax incentives in employer-sponsored health and retirement plans but mainly focuses on health care-related issues, such as enhancing high-deductible health plans and health savings accounts and creating more transparency about the cost of health care and prescription drugs.

The letter was specifically addressed to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana. According to ERIC, its letter is timely, as Congress considers instructions to individual committees as part of the budget reconciliation process.

ERIC’s letter stated that it is concerned by proposals to cap the federal income tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health coverage in the hopes of paying for the extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a priority for President Donald Trump.

“Doing so would be a direct tax increase on working families, and would be detrimental to employment-based coverage–the single largest source of coverage for millions of workers and their families,” the letter stated. “ERIC strongly opposes any changes to this tax exclusion.”

ERIC also expressed its opposition to any proposal that would weaken incentives on which workers rely to save for retirement.

“Middle class workers rely on tax incentives, longstanding in the tax code, that promote responsible savings and drive investment,” the letter stated. “Reducing the amount Americans can save in tax-preferred vehicles or changing when savings [are] taxed are counterproductive, short-sighted policies that would only undermine the success of the retirement system.”

The comment appeared intended to discourage requiring more retirement-plan contributions to made on an after-tax, or Roth, basis.

In addition, ERIC asked the House Committee on Ways and Means to consider several recommendations to improve “health care affordability and competition.” ERIC highlighted specific health savings account-related bills that the group supports, such as the Telehealth Expansion Act to provide telehealth coverage for HSA beneficiaries and the Health Savings for Seniors Act to permit Medicare beneficiaries to participate in and contribute to HSAs.

Addressing the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, ERIC urged lawmakers to “protect and strengthen” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. The organization also stated it opposes any attempt to mandate state reporting or other administrative obligations on companies that offer ERISA-regulated plans.

“Further erosion of ERISA preemption will adversely impact labor markets, disadvantage employees based on where they live or work, cause employers to cut back on benefit coverage, and raise the cost of health benefits—ultimately pricing some employees and their families out of coverage and undermining financial health and well-being,” the letter stated.

ERIC argued that one key way to strengthen ERISA would be to clarify that third parties performing services on behalf of plan sponsors for health benefit plans are subject to the same fiduciary duty to the plan as plan sponsors. ERIC released an issue brief in September 2024 urging Congress to deem pharmacy benefit managers as fiduciaries under ERISA, as PBMs increasingly have come under scrutiny for having “opaque business practices,” among other issues.

Another of ERIC’s requests to the Committee on Education and the Workforce was to “address out of control, unjustified premiums assessed to defined benefit pension plan sponsors to pay for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s single-employer insurance program.”

ERIC wrote that PBGC premiums are set by Congress and that it has increased premiums several times in the last 12 years. ERIC urged the Committee on Education and the Workforce to take this opportunity to reduce further premium assessments to the “maximum extent possible.”